


the brilliant dance

by devviepuu



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother's Best Friend, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Enemies, We All Need Years Of Therapy But Let's Try Sex Instead, because this is emma swan, best friend's younger sibling, can't they just have one conversation, idiots to lovers, nope - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-06-29 21:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19839184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: "People always leave."Those were the words that had guided Emma Swan's life."Leave, before you get left."That was Emma Swan's survival strategy.And when she has to face a loss she wasn't prepared for, it brings everything she had been running from for the past ten years back to the surface--like home.And Killian Jones.





	1. this is the last time

**Author's Note:**

> very (very) loosely inspired by sally thorne's novel "99 percent mine"  
> (also the dashboard confessional catalogue circa 2002; seasons two, five and seven of one tree hill; and i may or may not have been watching too much CW on netflix whilst editing this.)
> 
> cw: mentions of emma having panic attacks (and taking medication to help her alleviate her panic attacks)  
> cw: ruth's death
> 
> with gratitude to [@profdanglais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/profdanglais/pseuds/profdanglais), who gave time, critique, feedback and encouragement to a stranger from the internet

It wasn’t fair that the first funeral Emma Swan went to should be for her mother, but then again, Emma’s life had never, not even once, been ‘fair’. She was no stranger to losing people--people always left--but never before had she lost someone like this. Emma couldn’t hide, or skip it and pretend that she was fine, that she was unaffected, that her life wasn’t broken.

(That _she_ wasn’t broken.)

Emma had known it was coming--and sooner rather than later--but the reality of the day itself, of the box in the room and the people milling about everywhere trying to make small talk, was more than she was capable of handling even with the clorazepam prescription David had filled for her. Every single person in the room locked eyes with her at least once and Emma felt like a sideshow: Ruth Nolan’s prodigal adoptive daughter, with seven addresses in the past ten years, finally back in Storybrooke for the brief but ultimately terminal duration of her mother’s illness.

Every person, that is, except for the one face that was missing, and Emma couldn’t decide if she was relieved or devastated; if she wanted to see him or if she was dreading the moment.

Emma could not look at the box and think about what--who--was inside.

She could not talk to all of these people.

She could not leave. She knew she couldn’t. She owed her mother more than that, but--

The people were still everywhere and then Emma nearly fell over trying to reach for Ruth’s cat--Buttercup, because she had let Emma name it--and now some idiot had let the cat out of the house and onto the deck. Henry had to steady her, her brave ten-year-old kid who most of these people had never even seen and now everyone really was staring at her--at them. 

Again.

The curiosity was officially mixed with pity and Emma wasn’t sure which was worse and she didn’t want to find out, so she did what she always did, what she did best.

She ran.

Emma left the reception, left her brother and sister-in-law, left her _kid_ and the cat and the people milling around making mindless chatter as they politely ate deli sandwiches and Granny Lucas’ famous lasagna. David followed her, yelling at her in barely more than a whisper, tears streaming down her brother’s handsome face as Emma made it to her vintage Beetle and slammed the door.

Henry waved at her from the porch, a ten-year-old pillar of understanding and compassion and Emma was the worst mother in the entire world. So, to recap: her life sucked even worse than usual.

And Killian Jones was waiting for her when she parked and got out of her car at Granny’s Bed and Breakfast, so at least now she knew for sure that the answer was definitely ‘dread’. Emma had not had parents to read her fairy stories, not before Ruth, but David had been obsessed and insisted on sharing every single one of them until Emma had decided that Killian Jones was some kind of changeling. Probably an elf, with his pointed ears and pitch-black hair and eyes bluer than the ocean and if she’d known he would be here she would have at least pretended to get her shit together.

Maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell. (Only Killian could always tell.)

And the only thing worse than trying to get through this day would have been trying to get through this day without the means of breaking through her anxiety and her panic over this day. It was one thing, Emma now knew, to get the phone call, to rush back to Storybrooke, to know on an intellectual level that the end was coming. It sucked, it hurt, it was like a physical pain in her body and sometimes she couldn’t breathe but there was a strange sort of relief in the certainty of it. In the knowledge that it would all be over--the pain, the tears, the suffering--all temporary. And then, after, Emma would pick up the pieces and find a way forward.

Emma had always found a way to pick through the pieces of her own wreckage and move forward.

The box was another thing entirely. Every time she tried to contemplate it, to imagine this day--well, she couldn’t. Hence the clorazepam. Better living through chemistry, and all of that. Killian would have suggested rum, Emma was sure, and the therapist had recommended pot during the one session she had let David schedule for her. She was pretty sure it was the clorazepam that made her so wobbly and distracted but she was grateful for it, and the cat, and the fall because it was still easier than thinking about the box and who--what--was inside.

Emma started, surprised to realize that Killian was speaking to her. “...didn’t make it through the entire reception, then, Swan?” His eyes took her in, starting at the black boots and skipping over the small patch of dirt on the knee of her black stocking, watching her tie her favorite red scarf tighter around her neck, not staring at the figure-skimming black dress that was the only appropriate thing she’d had to wear. Emma took a step back, because that was what they did; they side-stepped, they kept distance. She wrapped her hands around her waist to keep herself from trying to reach for him. It wasn’t that his words were harsh, it was that the tone of his voice was soft and understanding and far too much to deal with on top of everything else. The door of the yellow Volkswagen was barely shut behind her, and, _shit_ , the door already being closed meant it would be too obvious if she got back in and kept driving.

Killian knew that, knew _her_ , knew that was what her instinct would be (knew that better than anybody), and had definitely positioned himself against the B&B entrance so that she wouldn’t see him until it was too late. 

(Besides, maybe, there was a small part of Emma that had suspected he would be here, waiting for her, and that part of Emma had definitely not been dreading this encounter but hoping for it, because she knew _him,_ knew that was what his instinct would be. Knew it better than anybody.) 

Killian sighed, turning away and resuming his original stance--his countermove in their elaborate dance. “You came home, lass,” he said. He shifted his eyes, freeing her from the pressure of his gaze. He might even have been talking to himself, low and calm, when he said, “You were there for her when it counted the most.” 

She was, she _had been_ \--she and her kid and her mom and her brother and sister-in-law, one happy fucking family for a sweet, brief instant--but her mother was still gone. And Emma had still run. As for home--well. She looked at Killian and wondered.

Emma opened her mouth, intending to say something normal and reassuring and not the _I haven’t called Storybrooke home in at least a decade_ that was dancing on the tip of her tongue, and then what came out instead was “I was tired of running away and living in the past”. _Fucking clorazepam_. 

Killian turned to face her again; his eyebrows, preternaturally expressive as ever, were somewhere up in the fringe of his hair before his eyes closed and something like a sigh escaped him. “Aye,” he said, his accent thicker than usual for someone who, though born in England, had grown up in _New_ England. He took a deep breath and gave a long exhale and said, “Not a day will go by you won’t think of her.” His eyes bore into hers, drilling a hole into her skull. 

( _Not a day will go by_ , his note had read, _that I won’t think of you._ )

“That’s how it is when you love someone, Swan. Whether they’re here or gone, they’re always with you.”

(He signed it _I will love you always, and forever_.)

Emma bit her bottom lip and said nothing.

“I promise you, Swan,” he added, “it gets better.” 

Emma nodded, shrinking herself farther away from him. 

(Did it get better? Had it gotten better, for him?)

(It never had, for her.)

Pulling a phone from his back pocket, he added, “I’ll tell Dave to keep the lad then, yeah?” Not waiting for an answer, Killian started typing, finished, and tipped her a salute. Two fingers casually in her direction as with his left hand he clumsily slid the phone back into its pocket and walked away. 

“See you around, lass,” he said.

\--

The text from David said simply: _Leave Killian alone_.

 _I’m sorry_ was what she had sent him; Emma was David’s sister by love and by law and by everything but blood, but Killian was his best friend and Emma had fucked that up before, so it wasn’t like he was wrong to be on his guard.

The phone dinged again: _Emma, come home. Please._

And again: _We have extra lasagna for you and Granny ordered us to make sure you ate_.

Again: _I need you, Emma. I need my sister with me tonight._

Finally: _But leave Killian alone, I am begging you._

Granny reiterated the order in person when Emma tried to secure a room, just for a night or two, an extra bed for Henry, of course, but Granny sent her back to the Beetle just as a text from Henry hit her phone.

_I love you, Mom._

Emma didn’t even stop to wipe a tear away when she typed, _I love you more, kid_. She got into her car, ignoring the sharp hint of new tears, drove back to the farmhouse, and accepted a hug from David. David’s hugs were the full-body kind--he wrapped one arm around her shoulder and the other cupped the back of her head as he pulled her full up against him, resting his cheek against hers. Emma gave up trying not to cry, to choke back the tears; it was useless and she was useless against them. 

Because it was important to her brother, Emma sat at the table and ate her lasagna in small and tentative bites, not tasting any of it as everyone around her sat in a kind of silent exhaustion. Henry fed the dog scraps of his dinner, which David did not see and Mary Margaret pretended not to notice. She leaned against her husband, watching Henry feed the dog, watching Emma eat the food she didn’t want, a sad sort of smile on her face. When David shifted and moved to get up, Mary Margaret stood too, still watching as David pulled Emma up until she was also standing and gave her another hug, the patented David Nolan hug that had brought her into this house in the first place.

Mary Margaret watched them and Emma knew that in spite of everything, her sister-in-law was glad to see their small family all under one roof.

Emma excused herself and ran upstairs.

\--

For more years than she cared to admit, Emma never slept as well as she once had done in the bedroom David and Ruth had given her. She was fourteen when her brother had dragged her into the farmhouse and told his mother that Emma was staying with them. It wasn’t the first time she had a room all to herself but it was the first time the room was referred to as hers. “This can be Emma’s room,” David had said proudly as the door swung open, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Ruth had smiled and acquiesced.

As if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She kicked her boots off and flung them in the direction of her suitcase, her jacket following soon after. Her dress draped over the dresser, knocking over the picture frames; the ones the dress did not cover Emma flipped so they too were facing down. It would have been easier to set up Henry in this room, leaving her to take David’s old room down the hall--but this was _her_ room. Ruth had been happy to see her back in it, no matter the reason for her return.

Emma pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and the first t-shirt she could find in her luggage, snuck into the jack-and-jill bathroom she was currently sharing with her son, and then cuddled herself into the threadbare sheet set she and Ruth had picked out together all of those years ago.

Ruth had found matching sheets for the crib still tucked into the corner, when--

A knock on the door interrupted her reverie. “Em,” her brother’s voice drifted through the wood, “Mary Margaret and I are going back to our place and I wanted to say goodnight.” He paused, and then added, “I love you, Emma. I’m glad you’re home.”

That word again.

Emma rolled over, pulling the blanket with her as she stood and moved to the door. She heard David start to move away and called, “Wait!” as she stepped into the hallway. David turned to face her, his body half-twisted, his face drawn. Emma took a deep breath and said, “I love you too, David. I’m sorry about earlier today. Everything was just…”

“I know, Em,” he soothed her, walking back to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have--”

“You had your reasons,” Emma admitted.

“You two are--”

Emma nodded. “I know.”

David sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Today was a shit day, wasn’t it?

“It was,” Emma agreed.

“Okay,” David said, then repeated, “okay.” He pulled her to him one more time for a hug. “Goodnight, then, Emma.”

“Goodnight, David.” Emma adjusted the blanket draped across her shoulders and padded back to her room. She stepped inside and this time paused at one of the overturned picture frames, pulling it back upright to take in the three figures depicted: David, Killian and Emma. Ruth had taken the picture soon after Emma’s adoption became official--Killian with his arms wrapped around Emma’s waist from behind and David stood to her side, one arm draped across both hers and Killian’s shoulders, his other arm wrapped around her front.

David had found both of them.

(David had a way of always finding people.)

Emma got back into bed and took the photograph with her.

 _Home_.

\--

“Mom?”

“Hey, kid,” Emma whispered at the figure hovering in her doorway. Henry pushed the door further open and she heard the click of the dog’s nails against the hardwood floor. She sat up, making space for Henry to climb into the bed; the dog settled itself on the small rug at their feet.

Emma was not sure how long she had lain in the silence, the photograph in her lap, the ringing of the emptiness around her deafening and keeping her from sleep. The one clock in the room was an ancient digital alarm type and Emma must have kicked it over in her rush to get out this morning because the only time it registered was an endless repetition of blinking eights. When she’d gotten up, she put the photograph on the bedside table, but Henry immediately picked it up and examined it, reaching for Emma’s phone and expertly switching on the flashlight function.

“Is this you and Uncle David?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Emma said, snuggling her chin into his shoulder.

“And this other guy?”

“That’s Killian,” Emma said.

“Oh,” Henry said. “That’s Uncle David’s friend from the wedding, right?”

 _Right_ , Emma thought. _Uncle David’s friend_ , because that was how Killian Jones had introduced himself less than a week ago when they met under the flower archway strung up in the backyard for a wedding that had been hastily arranged but long-awaited. It was an entirely new definition of ‘bittersweet’ as David and Mary Margaret Nolan said their vows; Emma was smiling so hard that her face hurt and crying so much she couldn’t see Lance, Mary Margaret’s childhood friend and Internet-ordained marriage celebrant, when he proclaimed them man and wife.

Ruth Nolan, though, was all smiles when she wished them luck and clutched her daughter-in-law’s hands and Killian had kissed each of them on the cheek as soon as he could wade through the small crowd.

It was the first time Emma had seen him in three years, but he was still one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen, resplendent in black jeans, a red shirt and a black leather jacket, his black tie somehow not discordant with the rest of his getup nor incongruous with the formally-informal vibe of the occasion. 

No, scratch that.

He was indisputably the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and she was still trying to catch her breath when Henry had gone barreling up to his grandmother and aunt and stopped still in the face of the specimen of physical perfection that was Killian Jones.

“Who are you?” Henry demanded with all of the authority of a ten-year-old who need to know something right that instant.

“Killian Jones, lad, at your service,” he’d said, just the slightest hint of a bow in his posture. “I’m a friend of your Uncle David’s.” Killian did not look at Emma when he said this.

“Oh,” Henry said, mildly interested. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard Mom mention you.”

 _That_ rated a look from Killian, a hint of a smile quirking at the corners of his mouth as he said, “Only good things, I hope, Swan.”

( _I hate you_ , he’d said, the last time they had spoken.)

“What else,” Emma muttered, “would he hear from me?”

“Well,” Killian had drawled, elongating the syllable. “It’s been such a long time. Who knows what you think of me now?”

The moment hovered in the air; sound stopped and movement stopped and time stopped and it became much, much more than a moment.

“Ugh,” Henry groaned, pulling at his tie. “I hate getting dressed up.”

And then the moment was gone.

“It’s good form to dress appropriately for all occasions,” Killian said easily, smoothing his own tie down his front. Emma was sure she was imagining the faint tremor that she saw there; what she was _definitely not_ imagining was grabbing Killian by the strip of fabric and pulling him to her. “You look very smartly turned out for your aunt and uncle, Henry,” Killian continued. “And your mother looks lovely, don’t you think?”

Ruth had insisted that no one make a fuss and David and Mary Margaret had considered themselves married since the day he’d slid Ruth’s emerald ring onto her finger almost six years before, so Emma had curled her hair and her eyelashes, pulled her favorite cream sweater, black skirt and black boots out of her suitcase, added her red leather jacket to the ensemble and draped her favorite scarf loosely around her neck.

It was not what she would have chosen if she had realized she’d be standing face-to-face with Killian Jones for the first time in three years.

“I guess,” Henry said. “How did you hurt your hand?”

Killian’s right hand traced over the network of scars winding down and around his left wrist. “Got banged up in a fight with a crocodile.”

Henry made a rude noise. “I may be a kid,” he said, “but I am not stupid.”

Killian looked at Emma again. “He’s turned into quite the little spitfire, hasn’t he?”

Henry looked between Emma and Killian, confused. “Turned into?” but then the dog ran by and Henry turned to chase after him, leaving Emma and Killian standing alone. 

Together.

There was silence between them, and it was not an easy silence, so Emma tried to take him in, knowing that he could probably feel the weight of her gaze. His hair was longer than it used to be; his ear was pierced. Two chains dangled from his neck and rings adorned three fingers of his right hand.

No wedding band, though. When had he stopped wearing it?

“Worry not, Swan,” Killian said finally. “I quite like the red leather jacket.”

_And then the moment was gone._

“Mom?” Henry said, and Emma knew he was probably repeating it.

“Yeah, Henry,” Emma said softly, “that is Uncle David’s friend. The one I went to see in Maryland, that time you stayed with Mrs. Cuse.”

“Oh,” Henry said, only half-interested. “Right. Mom?”

“Henry?”

“You look so happy in this photo,” Henry said wistfully.

(She had been happy. And, not unrelatedly, she’d been painfully, incredibly, insatiably, incandescently in love with Killian Jones.)

(It was the first time she’d ever felt that way.)

(It was the last time she’d ever felt that way.)

(Tomorrow, Emma decided, she was going to start cleaning up and settling things and working on getting herself and Henry back to New York as soon as possible.)

“It was a long time ago, kid,” Emma said. “Go to sleep, okay?”

Henry curled himself further into the blanket and muttered something incomprehensible, and Emma let herself be mesmerized by the blinking eights as she lay in bed with her kid, listening to Henry’s breathing intermingle with the snores of the dog they had just inherited, watching Buttercup’s eyes glow in the light from the alarm clock and feeling the weight of the cat’s judgement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is strange:  
> a sidestepping that's come to be a brilliant dance  
> and nobody leads at all.
> 
> the picture frames are facing down  
> and the ringing from this empty sound  
> is deafening,  
> and keeping you from sleep.  
> breathing is a foreign task;  
> thinking's just too much to ask  
> and you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking eights...
> 
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "a brilliant dance"
> 
> \--
> 
> i hope i don't need to say this, but emma's behavior at her mother's funeral is not meant to be a reflection on every person's grief, experience with panic attacks or experience with medication.
> 
> it is, in fact, a fictionalized, stylized, simplified interpretation of one person's experience with all of these things.  
> (yeah. the cat thing really happened. it was mortifying. it is seven years on and people still remember this about me.)


	2. so i'll hit the pavement (it's gotta be better than waiting)

Emma was seventeen years old when Liam Jones died, killed in an incident of ‘friendly fire.’

Killian’s older brother was a lieutenant in the Navy who was often away on active duty; Emma never quite understood--and Killian had never explained--how the custody worked out after Brennan Jones had left Killian locked out of the house one afternoon and never came back. David had found him standing on the front porch, kicking against the door, his eyes red and damp, and somehow between Liam and Ruth and with the blessing of CPS, Killian had been allowed to stay even when Liam was deployed.

The Casualty Notification Officers had found Killian on that same porch, with Emma and David at his side, when they delivered their grim news. Killian idolized his brother and his grief was overwhelming, pulling him into a dark place neither Emma nor David could penetrate. Emma felt helpless in the face of Killian’s despair and she’d skipped the funeral, choosing instead to wait for him on the porch until he walked home from the service, clutching the flag that had been draped over Liam’s casket. He saw her standing there, and something in his body changed as Emma instinctively ran toward him, hurling herself at him--his arms already moving to accommodate her, his body leaning backward to balance her forward momentum--like they were completely in tandem, like the movements were already choreographed and they knew the dance by heart.

Emma was bad at emotions and had no reference for this kind of grief, but she knew one thing was always true: people always left. Her parents, Killian’s dad and now his brother and “I’m sorry,” Emma whispered into his shoulder, because she was.

That was when Killian began sobbing in earnest.

That was the first time Emma realized that she loved Killian Jones.

Like, _loved_ him.

“My brother, Swan,” he said, his voice broken. “I don’t have anyone left.”

“You have me,” she’d said, “I love you.” She didn’t even think about saying the words, because she knew they were right. “Killian, I love you.”

“Emma,” he’d said, pulling himself far enough away to look her in the eye. “I love you.” He’d pulled her back to him and kept repeating it: “I love you.”

\--

They’d spent the night in her bed.

Emma dragged Killian back home, unwilling to let him spend the night alone and even less willing to be apart from him, denying him the couch. She’d pulled him into bed with her and held his head in her lap and listened to him sob and wheeze and breathe until the sounds evened out and the rise and fall of his chest was steady. She’d held his hand and felt the weight of his scruffy almost-beard against her thigh when he turned to press a kiss there. She watched him sleep, ruffling his hair against her fingertips and though they barely spoke or moved it was the most intimate, romantic thing she’d ever experienced, but in the morning her life turned upside down and Emma was ready to run.

( _Not a day will go by I won’t think of you, Swan_ , the note said.)

He was leaving; people always left.

Ruth had looked sad and thoughtful when Emma had gone to her. “Oh, my sweet duckling,” her mother had said. “I guess part of me always knew you’d need to find your wings.” That was, maybe, the thing that Emma would always love the most about Ruth: she knew that sometimes, you have to let people go their own way.

Because Emma was determined.

Killian would not be able to leave her, not if she left first.

( _I love you._ )

( _I will love you always, and forever._ )

In the end, though, Emma hadn’t found wings.

She’d found Neal.

\--

Emma had been an unhappy thirteen-year-old the first time she’d run away--unhappy, but still scared and cautious. It had taken David finding her in a grocery store with a box of Pop-Tarts shoved under the front of her t-shirt to pull her out of it, and they left the store with the Pop-Tarts paid for in full.

At seventeen, she was reckless, making her way from Storybrooke to Portland to Boston--hitchhiking, jumping turnstiles, sleeping in the train station--in a matter of a few days before the first phone call from David came through on her new pay-as-you-go cell phone.

Ruth had given her $1000 and her blessing, and Emma was gone before David or Killian or anyone could stop her.

“Did you know, Emma?” David said, bypassing the pleasantries. 

She could hear the pent-up emotion in his voice, the double-whammy of losing his best friend and his sister in the same week.

Emma hiccoughed, a small sob into the phone that gave her away completely.

“Is that why you left, Emma?” David said, his tone softening. “Because Killian enlisted?”

Emma said nothing, fingering the ring on the chain around her neck that Killian had left with his note. Liam’s ring, and it had been their mother’s before that.

_(I can see a future for us, love. A happy one.)_

“Did he--”

“No, David.” Emma’s voice cracked only a little bit.

“The two of you, were you--”

“It’s fine, David. I promise.” Emma was very good at telling when people were lying. David was not.

“Okay,” David said, but there was reluctance in his tone. “It’s okay if he broke your heart, Emma. You can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “How are you? How’s Mom?”

And so it went.

\--

It had been more than a year since Emma had seen her brother and he had broadened in the chest and shoulders, easily filling out a flannel shirt with a tank top underneath. Emma could see his thickened biceps brushing against the sleeves as David crossed his arms against his chest, probably trying to keep himself from reaching for her. He wanted to hug her, she could tell; one of his signature ones, with an extra squeeze for good measure, and he wasn’t sure if that was allowed right now or if the guard would stop them.

So Emma hugged him instead.

It was minimum security.

Hugging was allowed.

Emma pushed him away before the guard could get antsy and let David’s eyes sweep over her, truly, for the first time. She saw the instant he figured it out, his gaze hovering over her abdomen.

“It’s Neal’s?” David asked.

“Yes,” Emma said. 

Neal Cassidy had been sleeping in the backseat of a car in Portland, Oregon. The car was yellow--buttercup yellow--which made Emma feel homesick and she needed somewhere to sleep that night and a group of former foster kids she’d spent time with in Chicago had taught her the basics and--

The lock had popped right open and Emma slid in, quickly going to work on the ignition.

“You could have just asked me for the keys,” Neal said, popping up behind her with a shit-eating grin on his face and the confidence of someone who had been using it to get out of trouble his entire life.

David shifted uncomfortably. 

“I, uh, brought you some stuff. Letters. I left it for you, I don’t know when you’ll…”

“Letters?”

“From Killian.”

There was nothing to say to that--at least, nothing that Emma was willing to say, so instead: “I still don’t know how you found me.”

“Did you really doubt that I would?” David seemed actually offended at this slight against his honor.

“I mean,” Emma said. “The jail thing did give me pause.”

Almost in spite of himself, Emma could tell, David laughed.

\--

It was over.

It was _over_.

When Emma woke up the morning after her mother's funeral, her kid sprawled diagonally across the bed, her face nose-to-nose with a cat that was looking murderous over a missed morning meal, that was her first thought.

It was over.

Like it was a dream--a bad dream; and now she was awake and left to face a world that no longer had Ruth Nolan in it. 

Emma forced herself to roll out of bed mostly because Buttercup had realized she was awake, and was escalating her persuasion tactics by pushing a claw against Emma’s nose. She tucked Henry back in, straightening the blanket, and let the animals follow her downstairs. Emma fed them while the coffee brewed and she left the kettle on a low boil for Henry’s inevitable request for cocoa before snapping a leash on the dog to run him out into the yard.

Henry had his head in the fridge when she came back in, looking for milk to go with the sugary cereal she had let him guilt her into buying. She mixed a packet of chocolate powder with the hot water and topped it off with a cinnamon stick before asking, “You gonna be okay while I go up and shower?”

With all of the world-weariness a ten-year-old could muster, Henry rolled his eyes.

Emma kissed him on the top of his head, prompting another eye roll.

“Did you sleep at all, Mom?” Henry’s voice was quiet, almost tentative.

Emma smiled at him. “Yeah, kid,” she said.

“Good,” Henry said simply.

Emma went upstairs and turned the water as hot as could stand it for as long as she could stand it.

It was over.

\--

The first time Emma slept with Neal Cassidy was the night he’d taken her out and told her a story. 

She’d asked for it: “Tell me a story, Neal,” she’d said as he’d handed her the cup of coffee that was all the “drinks” he could afford.

“That’s an interesting choice of words,” Neal observed. “Like, with elves and orcs or the kind with the big bad wolf?”

Emma rolled her eyes and laughed. “Like, your story, ass.”

“My story,” and there was the grin again, “is that I had kind of a fucked-up situation, and it kind of fucked me up.”

“Crappy home life?”

“I guess,” Neal shrugged. “It wasn’t always.”

“You never wanted to go back and try to fix it?” Emma was projecting, and she knew it--but Neal didn’t know it, because Neal didn’t know her entire history. There was a freedom in that kind of anonymity.

“I can’t really go back,” Neal said. “And I’m not sure there’s anything to fix even if I could. But there’s still that feeling that I just can’t shake.”

( _Emma, it’s Killian_ , his voice said at the beep.)

“Feeling?”

“Of home,” Neal said. “That’s how you really know you have a home. You just--you miss it. You know what I mean?”

( _I wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of you, Swan. I hope you’re well._ )

She knew that feeling. She’d spent the past six months trying to fuck it and ignore it and run it away. “Yeah,” Emma said. “I think maybe I do.”

\--

Contacts in, hair brushed, half a pill today because Emma wanted to see if she was ready to wean off the clorazepam, her favorite socks that Henry had bought her with little dragons on them, and Emma headed back down the stairs to the sound of new voices in the kitchen.

She could also smell her brother’s signature pancakes and syrup, but Emma was unprepared for the sight of Killian Jones sitting at the breakfast table next to Henry. His hand was waving in the air, punctuating some story, and Henry’s eyes were wide and alert and he was laughing.

God, her kid had an amazing, sweet laugh.

It had been a little while since anyone around them had been laughing.

David caught her eye first and Emma couldn’t help the glare that she shot at him. _Leave Killian alone_ had been his express command and now David was preparing to fete him with pancakes and coffee at their mother’s breakfast table for the first time in something like eleven years. David shrugged his shoulders, like _what was I supposed to do_ and Emma just listened to Henry laugh and took in the scent of David’s pancakes. _It’s fine_ , she mouthed.

It was more than fine.

It was like a glimpse at an alternate timeline, one where she had never left and this had always been her life and the only thing missing was her mother. Emma’s breath caught and Killian noticed her for the first time, breaking off his story mid-word.

“Alright, love?” The endearment seemed to fall from his lips before he could stop it and Emma knew they realized it at the exact same moment because that was when the awkwardness sprang back up between them.

“Yeah,” Emma said, giving herself a mental shake. “Of course. I hope there’s enough food to share?” She directed the remark toward Henry, who gestured enthusiastically with his fork at the tower of pancakes threatening to topple over on the table. “Usually I’m lucky to grab a cup of lukewarm coffee on my way to work,” she added, not sure if that was for David or for Killian. “But you know there aren’t any, like, Romanian powerlifters hiding upstairs.”

“My fault, Swan,” Killian said. “I was telling your lad here about his uncle’s propensity for epic breakfasts and here we are.”

“Have some, Mom,” Henry said, barely getting the words out around what seemed to be an entire pancake.

“Don’t mind if I do, kid,” Emma said, swiping a piece right off his plate.

Henry moaned a protest, and Killian laughed. David mussed her hair and put a plate down in front of her.

“Swan,” Killian said, “I have a modest proposal, of sorts.”

Emma tried not to let her body freeze at the word _proposal_ and was pleased that she was able to breathe normally--that her hand didn’t ghost over her neck for the chain she didn’t even have anymore.

“We’re going sailing!” Henry said, and Emma’s eyebrows went up.

“I brought my boat into Storybrooke Harbor when I came for the wedding,” Killian explained at her questioning glance. “Scarlet and Locksley came in last night--you know his son is just a bit younger than your Henry, and we thought the lads would enjoy a day sail on the _Jolly Roger_.”

“Like Captain Hook, Mom!”

“Finish your breakfast, Henry, or you’ll be walking the plank,” Killian said, trying to sound stern but just making Henry laugh again. And, for just one more minute, Emma let herself stay in that other timeline, the one where this was her life and Killian taking her son on his sailboat with his Navy buddies was an ordinary occurrence. 

“That sounds great,” she said, ignoring David’s eyebrows when they went up, pointing at him when Killian turned his attention back to Henry: _this is your fault,_ her finger conveyed. “Is Uncle David invited, too?”

“Uncle David said he needs to stay here with you and do stuff,” Henry said, and Emma definitely saw David wince when he said it.

“Is that so,” Emma said.

\--

“What do you mean, Mom left me the house?”

Killian was gone, Henry eagerly following behind; the breakfast dishes were drying in the rack and the dog lay at their feet as Emma and David drank another cup of coffee together in the kitchen that was, apparently, hers.

Regina Mills, Esq., sat across from them and said, “Did you not hear me the first time?”

“No,” Emma said. “I did.”

“Do you not believe me?”

“Of course I do,” Emma said quickly.

“Then I’ll just leave you this,” Regina said, pulling an envelope out of her briefcase, “and get on with my day, shall I?”

“Thank you, Regina,” David said, getting up to show her out.

Emma was turning the envelope over in her hands when David returned. “I’m sorry,” Emma said.

“What? Why?”

“This is your house,” Emma said. “Storybrooke is your home.”

“No, Emma,” David said. “Mom wanted you to have it. I’ve known for a while.” 

“But,” Emma said, looking for the right words. “But I have an apartment in New York, and a job, and a life--” And Emma still had that feeling twisting up inside of her, that instinct to pack everything up and leave, that had crept up on her in the night as she listened to her kid, the cat and the dog snore in a kind of syncopated harmony.

“I want you to have it, too,” David interrupted her.

“You do?” 

“I want my sister to come home,” David said. “That’s all I’ve wanted for the past ten years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'i'm always assuming the worst  
> but you're going on, nonetheless  
> and there's nothing to cushion your heart-led fall.  
> i'm continually failing these trials  
> and you stand by me, nonetheless  
> and you won't let me sink   
> (though i'm begging you)  
> so i'll hit the pavement--  
> it's gotta be better than waiting  
> and pushing you  
> far away  
> (because i'm scared)'  
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "living in your letters"


	3. this will be best for us both (in the end)

Storybrooke, Maine seemed colder than she remembered after eleven months in the general population at the Arizona Correctional Facility for Women.

Or maybe it was the shiver that ran through her body when David showed up at the farmhouse, Killian Jones and two of his shipmates in tow. It was hard to see him, especially since it wasn’t hard at all--not when his first remark upon seeing Henry was a simple and heartfelt “He’s perfect, Swan.” Emma still remembered their dance, even though she had tried to forget; she had moved toward him and his body automatically went to accommodate her, his arms shifting to pull her into a hug and he smelled exactly like she remembered, his shampoo still familiar even though his hair was shorn to regulation-length.

(He tasted like hard plastic and cheap rum, his skin clean-shaven and smooth against hers--but that would come later.)

Robin Locksley had admired Henry’s smile and mentioned that he and his wife hoped to have children, eventually while Will Scarlet pulled a face, making Henry laugh. Emma had the night off, with Ruby covering her shift at the diner while Henry gurgled happily in the crib that Ruth had set up for him in Emma’s old room. Ruth was so happy to have all of them under the same roof again that she had immediately volunteered to look after Henry--and stay upstairs--while David and Emma and Killian took over the living room. She was feeling good as the four of them passed around a blue plastic Nalgene bottle full of rum--good enough that she didn’t miss a beat when Will shrugged his shoulders and said, “So, Emma, why were you in prison?”

She had stolen things.

Emma hadn’t needed to steal, she typically worked her way from place to place, but something about being with Neal had made it seem like glamorous, like it was them against the world. He’d given her a keychain where most women might prefer a ring, and they had made plans for a future: a cross-country trip, a home in Tallahassee, for no other reason than they had picked it off of a map. He had made her feel good and made her forget and she liked being reckless with him right up until he left her to take the fall for his theft and it was the opposite of how she felt here and now sitting on the couch in her mother’s living room trading stories with David and Killian like no time had passed at all. 

(Loving Neal had been an adventure.)

(Loving Killian was like an addiction, an insatiable rush that left her short of breath.)

She shook her head at her brother’s pinched expression, not needing his intervention when she sensed that Scarlet was harmless and most likely deflecting from a few skeletons of his own. She wasn’t proud of it, but the incarceration was part of who she was. And Emma had decided, watching Henry wriggle in her arms in the seconds after she had opened her eyes and forced herself to look at the tiny human that she had brought into the world, that the person she used to be wasn’t as important as the person she was trying to be. 

“Cheaper than college,” Emma deadpanned, taking another sip of the rum. “Room and board was free.”

Will laughed and David relaxed and Killian’s eyes twinkled, lighting up the small smile on his face.

“Funny,” Will said. “That’s how I ended up in the Navy with these two,” then,” _ow_ ” when Robin smacked him up the side of the head.

“Ignore him,” Robin advised, smiling kindly and without judgment. “That’s what the rest of us do.”

“Don’t worry about Swan, mate,” Killian said, leaning in to take the bottle just as she started to shift toward him. “Emma can hold her own against a git like Scarlet.”

“My sister can hold her own against anybody,” David said, shooting a glare at Will.

“But, hey, speaking of college,” Will said, reaching around Robin and shoving Killian. “Aren’t you going to tell them?” He turned to David and Emma. “Jones here applied for a nomination to Annapolis.”

“Wow,” David said, obviously impressed, and looked at Emma. “Isn’t that amazing, Em?”

“Sure?” Emma said. “Only I don’t know what that means.”

“The Naval Academy,” Robin explained. “You have to be nominated. When you’re already enlisted, you apply to the Secretary of the Navy for a nomination.”

“Killian,” Emma said with feeling--a lot of feelings, feelings she couldn’t name as they swarmed around her brain and made her blood feel like it was on fire, and she was sure she was doing something unnatural with her face as she tried to smile. “That is amazing.”

Emma hadn’t even registered for the tests to get her GED yet.

David must have seen the look on her face because he cleared his throat and said, ”Were we going to watch a movie or not?”

Emma shot a glance at Killian, unsurprised to see him already looking at her. Emma smiled again, something closer to a real one, and let herself relax against the couch as Killian said, “Aye, Dave,” and handed him the remote. “You do the honors.”

\--

When Emma woke up the room was mostly dark and everyone was gone, and her head was on Killian’s shoulder. Killian was muttering to himself about the Nalgene bottle.

“We were out of cups,” Emma reminded him, struggling to sit up and reaching for the rum.

“It’s a lovely tale, Swan. But we had a perfectly serviceable bottle,” Killian said, not for the first time. “With rum already in it, as it happens.”

“Gross,” Emma said, taking a sip, watching Killian watch her. He smiled, almost shyly, and Emma couldn’t do anything but smile back.

“It wouldn’t have tasted like plastic, love,” Killian said. Then, abruptly: “I should get going.”

He had never asked her why she left. Not once. He had replied to every letter she had written him from prison, and sent her more of them when she was slow to respond. She had failed, and he had stood by her.

She had left, and he was still here.

“Killian,” Emma said. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

“Though I do say so meself, I make an excellent pillow,” Killian joked, “But you don’t need to thank me.” Then, seriously, “You never have to thank me, you know that.”

“You stood by me,” Emma said. “Even after everything.”

“Aye,” Killian had said. “Well, perhaps a little gratitude is in order then.” He braced a knee against the couch, leaning down to kiss her gently against her forehead until suddenly--or perhaps inevitably--it was no longer gentle. 

It was a minute, or maybe an eternity, of the world’s most perfect kiss, the kind that shattered worlds and broke curses and then--

“Jesus _fuck_ , Emma,” Killian had sworn, coming up for air. “Is this how you kiss?” He was only just far enough away from her to form words, and still their bodies tried to drift closer together, hewing to their perfect, brilliant dance. Emma pulled him back to her for another round, because she _wanted_ this, and--

“I love you, Emma,” he said. “God, Emma, I--”

The words bubbled up within her, just like they had done that first time. 

_I love you_.

\--

Emma had given the ring back the morning after the first--and last--time she had kissed Killian Jones.

“We need to talk,” she’d said, gesturing him onto the porch--that damn porch again--when he opened the door, not wanting Scarlet and Locksley to overhear. He was already dressed for his return to duty and it was--

It was a lot. Killian Jones in his crisp, pressed Navy whites was a lot.

“The thing is, Swan,” he’d said, “I find that when a woman says that, I’m rarely in for a pleasant conversation.” He’d paused, and then said, “Besides, I’m not sure I know what there is left to say.”

(“ _I love you, Emma_ ,” he’d said. “ _God, Emma, I--_ ”)

(“ _Don’t say anything,_ ” was what she had actually said. “ _Just kiss me._ ” It was only in her dreams that she said the other things: _I love you; I want all the same things you want; I want everything. I want it with you._ )

( _You’re my home._ )

(Killian shifted, putting a thumb against her bottom lip, holding her in place, pulling himself back. He smiled, and it was devastating. “ _I’ve thought of you every day,_ ” Killian said. “ _And I’ve dreamed of this every night._ ” Emma would always believe that she had actually felt the brush of his eyelashes against her cheek when he said, “ _But this--this is--this was--a one-time thing._ ”)

(“ _Tell me_ ,” he said. “ _Tell me that I won’t wake up tomorrow morning to find you already gone, with your boy. Or the next day, or the next. Tell me and I will believe you._ ”)

(Emma wanted to protest, to say that he was wrong. She wanted to, but she couldn’t.)

(Because--Annapolis. The Naval Academy. He was leaving. _People always left._ )

Killian’s finger traced the chains she wore around her neck: Liam’s ring and the keychain Neal had stolen for her, refashioned into a pendant. “This was his, wasn’t it,” Killian said, not asking. “Just another weight around your neck. Another reminder.”

( _Consider it a reminder, Swan_ , his note had read. _That you have a piercing-eyed, smoldering Navy man who loves you._ )

“That’s not what you are,” Emma whispered, reaching for him, fisting her fingers in his uniform, splaying them out when she realized she was crumpling the fabric and probably violating any number of Naval regulations.

He put his hand over hers. “I could kiss you forever, you know,” Killian said, and that’s when Emma’s body went stiff all over again.

“You _can’t_ ,” Emma very nearly spat. “Because you’re leaving. _Again._ ”

“I’m going to _school_ , Swan,” and for the first time, Killian seemed angry. “One of the best in the country, as it happens. And I’m doing it--or I thought I was--for you, and for me. For us, love, don’t you see? I wanted to be a better man, a worthy man, a man of honor.”

Emma shook her head, her eyes closing against a flow of tears she couldn’t control.

“You left, Swan,” Killian said sadly. “ _You_ left. And I never asked why, because I already knew, and I’ve waited, almost two years. All I wanted was to be someone you could come home to, Emma, but that’s not what this is, is it? This is you, still running.”

( _“Don’t say anything. Just kiss me_.”)

She knew what he was doing, too; knew him, knew what he was thinking.

She couldn’t push him away again if he did it first.

“So much for that happy future,” Killian said, and for just an instant his voice sounded broken, cold and hard from the effort of suppressing his emotions.

“Killian,” Emma said. “Just. Can you--” But Emma fell silent, because he was right. What else was there to say?

( _I want all the same things you want; I want everything. I want it with you._ )

( _You’re my home_.)

“I can’t take the chance I’m wrong about you,” Emma whispered.

( _I love you_. Three syllables. Eight letters.)

Emma reached for the chains around her neck, fingering the heavier silver one that carried Liam’s ring, and undid the clasp, which was when it was Killian’s turn to go stiff all over.

“I’m sorry,” she said, handing him the ring. 

Three syllables. Seven letters. 

“Aye, lass,” Killian said. “Me too.”

“I’m going to go now,” Emma said softly.

And Killian said, so softly Emma was sure she wasn’t meant to hear it: “As you wish.”

\--

“Emma,” David said, and it was obvious from the tone of his voice that it was not the first or the second or probably even the fifth time that he had tried to get her attention. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“You want me to have the house,” Emma said, though the words didn’t quite make sense. 

“I want you to _come home_ ,” David repeated. “I want you to move here and make a life here with your son and our family. And I was a dick about Killian yesterday because I was terrified, Em, because I know how it is with you two and how you tend to react to each other and I need my sister to not run away this time.”

For the second time that morning, Emma had to stop her hand reaching for her neck, searching for a ring that wasn’t there. “Yeah,” Emma said. “I’m just--it’s not as easy as you make it sound.”

Lies. Emma was lying. She could have their stuff packed up and shipped before the end of the week, but David still always believed whatever anyone told him, so. “And I seem to recall a declaration, something like, ‘Emma, you’ve given me my happy ending,’ when you proposed to Mary Margaret.”

David blushed.

“So,” Emma continued, “it’s not like every time I’ve left it’s been a disaster.”

It was Ruby’s suggestion, when Emma decided she was moving to Boston less than a week after--after the thing, with Killian and the ring. She hadn’t been sleeping, because every time she closed her eyes she played it over in her head and changed the ending, because she could do that in a dream.

She couldn’t do that in real life.

So Emma registered for her GED tests and decided she was going to take them in Boston and Ruby, bless her, mentioned her college friend Mary Margaret who was living down there and working as a teacher--roommate and tutor in one go, Ruth had said, trying to sound encouraging.

“And maybe, duckling, a new friend,” Ruth said, and there was definitely _something_ in her voice, like maybe the friends Emma had made thus far hadn’t quite worked out the way any of them had hoped.

“We both got lucky with Mary Margaret,” David agreed. “But you know I still have the scar.”

Emma had taken the loft in Mary Margaret’s small downtown apartment, barely big enough for a full-sized bed, a dresser, and a crib for Henry. The space was open, no lock on the door because it didn’t have a door, but Emma found herself soothed instead of annoyed by the quiet, constant, kind-hearted presence of her new roommate.

David had the opposite reaction, the first time they met--but to this day, Emma still took her sister-in-law’s side. 

Mary Margaret had hit him and he had deserved it.

End of story.

\--

“I’m seeing someone,” Killian said, and those were the first words she’d heard from him in two years when she saw him at David’s graduation party.

Emma instinctively stepped back from him, because that, apparently, was what they did now. She had turned toward him almost against her will, and their eyes had met, and Emma had managed “It’s nice to see you,” as a greeting and she felt like his gaze was going to drill a hole into her head.

That’s when he’d said it.

“Oh,” was all she said in reply. 

Killian flushed and took a step away, a mirror of hers. Their movements were strained and awkward, the smooth rhythm they once had completely gone; side-stepping where once they had leaned into each other. It was like a dance where no one would take the lead and neither of them wanted to follow.

“I--,” Killian said, and then tried again: “I thought you ought to know. I’m seeing someone, and it’s serious.” His hand brushed the back of his neck. “We’re engaged.”

“Um,” Emma said. “Okay.”

This was how it was meant to be, now.

“In case Dave hadn’t mentioned it?”

He hadn’t.

How could David not tell her?

“How could you not tell her?” Mary Margaret demanded, levelling a glare at David before Emma could even introduce them.

David met her glare for glare. “Because,” he said, enunciating his words as if he were speaking to a small child, “she wouldn’t have come home otherwise.”

“Ugh,” Mary Margaret said. “Aren’t you a real Prince Charming.” She shifted her weight in what she would later claim was meant to be a shove against his shoulder for emphasis, but someone behind her accidentally pushed her forward and her fist made contact with David’s chin, drawing blood.

“Shit,” the pusher said, his voice accented and lilting, “I’m so sorry.”

“Actually,” Emma said, smiling for the first time since their arrival, “your timing was perfect.”

“Cheers,” he said. “I’m Graham, by the way.” He held out a hand for her to shake, his face lighting in recognition. “And you’re Emma.”

\--

“He’s the one David hired to find you,” Killian said later, when she ran into him at the bar.

“Who did what now?” Emma said, turning to face him. 

“Graham Humbert,” Killian said, his eyes turning slightly dark. “He finds people, and he is the one who found you.” There was an awkward pause before he said, “In Arizona.”

“In prison, you mean. I know that,” Emma said, because Graham had said so about ninety seconds into their encounter. “But, just so we’re clear, you’re saying that he knows about my shit and is still being nice to me, which apparently rates a warning.” She raised her eyebrow, a hint of accusation in her voice.

“This is me being nice, Swan,” Killian protested. 

“Then it needs to stop,” Emma snapped.

“You deserve better.”

“Killian--” Emma took a deep breath. “You do not get to say shit like that to me. Not ever, and especially not any more. The only one who saves me is me.” 

“What do you want from me, lass?” Killian asked, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Nothing, Killian,” Emma said, feeling the anger drain out of her, feeling the sadness well back up.

“Milah believes in me,” Killian said, his voice raw. “I love her, Emma. I’m happy, for the first time since--”

“You’re the one that gave up on us,” Emma said, when he didn’t continue.

“I--” he sputtered, and Emma was unprepared for him to grasp something around his neck, hidden by his shirt: the ring, Liam’s ring. He hadn’t given Milah the ring. What--

What did that mean? 

“I did nothing of the sort.” Killian’s temper was clearly getting the better of him as he took a step into her personal space. “I would have followed you to the end of the world,” he said, and the words were deadly quiet. “But you didn’t want me to. _You_ gave up on _me_. All I wanted was to be someone you could believe in, but you--you can’t just pick things up and put them down and expect them to always be there, Swan.”

“People always leave,” Emma muttered, because she needed to believe it herself, because she needed the epic fuck-up of the past four years not to be her fault. “You would have done the same, eventually.”

“Actually, no,” Killian said, taking another step forward and angling his head so they were nearly at a level. “I loved you. But the time for that is done, Swan.”

His eyes were practically burning with intensity and hurt.

(Nothing. The ring meant nothing.)

(All of it was her fault.)

She side-stepped, turned, backed away.

It was easier this time; this was how it was meant to be, now.

“I have,” Ruby said, sitting next to Emma as she watched Milah and Killian, “vodka. Like, the biggest bottle of vodka in the world.”

(They leaned into each other. They were comfortable.)

(That was the sort of woman Killian Jones was meant to be with.)

“Sounds great,” Emma said. “But what will you drink?”

“Tequila,” Ruby said succinctly.

Emma laughed and leaned her head on Ruby’s shoulder. “I appreciate the offer,” Emma said, meaning it. She could count her friends on one hand and have fingers left over. “But…”

Ruby followed her gaze toward Graham Humbert. “Oh, definitely,” Ruby said approvingly. “Way better than vodka. Best way to get over a man, right?”

Emma laughed again.

She left with Graham that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> which of the bold-faced lies will we use?  
> 'i hope that you're happy'?  
> 'you really deserve it'?  
> 'this will be best for us both, in the end'?
> 
> (but your taste still lingers on my lips  
> like i just pressed them upon yours   
> and i starve  
> i starve for you.)  
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "the standard lines"


	4. the things we've declared in our silence

Emma was waiting when the  _ Jolly Roger _ made its way back into the marina and found herself on the business end of a rope (“A  _ line _ , Swan, it’s a nautical term”) as Killian maneuvered the small sailboat expertly back into its slip, Will Scarlet and Robin Locksley a bustle of activity on the deck as Killian cut the engine. 

Henry practically jumped off when Killian unfastened the wire and made a beeline for Emma, trying to show her the right way to tie the boat to the dock. 

“It’s a  _ cleat hitch _ , Mom,” Henry said, like that was a thing everyone knew. “Right, Roland?”

“Yeah,” said the six-year-old who was watching Henry with something like worship in his eyes. “A cleat hitch, Papa!”

“That’s right, Roland,” Locksley said, smiling as he stepped down onto the dock. To Emma’s surprise, Robin touched her on the shoulder when he approached, and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Emma, but may I say that it’s very nice to see you again?” The same kindness she remembered from all of those years ago was in his eyes as he turned them toward Henry. “And your son, of course, practically all grown up now.”

“Don’t remind me,” Emma said. “Not, I mean, about seeing you again--the last time we saw each other--but about--”

_ Fucking clorazpepam _ , Emma thought, but Robin was still smiling, so she smiled back.

“I knew what you meant,” he said, his eyes full of understanding as they drifted toward Killian.

“It’s hard to believe that Henry’s ten years old already,” Emma finished lamely, and felt Robin squeeze her shoulder in reply as he walked past her. For the first time, Emma let herself wonder what Killian might have said to his friends after their strange night together. Mary Margaret and Ruby had definitely gotten an earful as Emma tried the ‘friend’ thing for practically the first time in her life, telling the stories over and over again until the words no longer made sense thanks to many, many of Mary Margaret’s favorite apple martinis.

(Or maybe the stories never had made sense, and Emma just needed to figure out what the fuck she had been trying to do. She thought she’d been walking out of real life, letting herself exhale, protecting herself from losing anyone.)

(Her strategy, as it turned out, sucked.)

Another touch on her shoulder brought her back to herself and Emma saw that Robin, Roland, Henry and Will were a couple hundred feet ahead of her on the road leading back to town. 

“Alright, Swan?”

Emma shrugged. His eyes were still  _ so fucking blue _ . 

“Shall we follow them, then?” Killian asked, holding his arm out to her expectantly.

Emma stared at him for a moment until what he was asking her became clear, and she tentatively wrapped her arm around his for the first time since his senior year of high school.

Since before Liam died.

It had started as a joke or maybe a dare; Emma didn’t remember. He’d escort her, and it was their thing, and whenever she’d ask him why he kept it up he would roll his eyes and smirk and say  _ I’m a gentleman, Swan,  _ like he was the hero in some Victorian novel, and she had actually forgotten what it felt like.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Still a gentleman, Swan,” he said, starting to walk and pulling her along with him.

Just like that morning, Emma let herself have it--only for a few minutes, their steps nearly in sync --before she couldn’t stop herself.

“I’m not used to this anymore, you know,” she said. “You being nice to me.”

And winced, because... _ fuck _ .

( _ “This is me being nice, Swan.”) _

_ (“Then it needs to stop.”) _

“I’m trying something new,” he said. “And you, Swan, are clearly not used to the Maine weather anymore, either.” He gestured at the scarf draped loosely around her neck, and Emma was grateful that he had changed the subject so easily.

“It’s my favorite,” Emma muttered, pulling the scarf tighter with her free hand even though he was right; it was a bit warm for the scarf. “I wear it basically everywhere. My brother gave it to me.”

“Special occasion?” Killian sounded merely curious.

“Um,” Emma said. “Not really. I was in kind of a bad way, I guess.”

Killian had no idea what he was asking. He couldn’t possibly know. 

“David sent it to me three years--”

( _ I hate you, Emma _ , Killian had said, his hand fisting around the sheets on his hospital bed.)

(Three years ago.)

(The last time they had spoken.)

“I mean, when I was living in Florida and going through some shit, so what else is new,” Emma laughed self-deprecatingly, and if it was a little bit desperate, well, there wasn’t much she could do about it. “I thought it was a really bad joke. But he said that it was hand-knit and he really liked the color and it made him think of me.”

Killian just looked at her, his eyebrows urging her to continue. God, when was the last time they’d had a conversation like this? About something real?

Since Liam died.

Since Killian--

( _ I hate you _ .)

“Plus, turns out it actually gets cool sometimes in northern Florida.”

“You lived in Florida?”

“For a while,” Emma said evasively. “I guess I just needed the reminder, that, I don’t know, somebody was there for me.”

( _ “Consider it a reminder…” _ )

Killian was silent for a moment and Emma braced herself, not sure what to expect, but all he said was: “It does. Suit you, that is. Makes your eyes look green.”

They walked quietly for a few minutes until Emma said, “Killian?”

“Aye,” he answered. 

“I’m sorry about the…” she waved at his arm, still wrapped up in hers. “Before. I appreciate you being nice to me.” Her words were vague to the point of meaninglessness, but Killian knew what she meant. They had lost so many things between them, but Killian could still read her like an open book.

“I’m sorry, too, lass. About before.” Killian paused and added: “You know I don’t, right? I didn’t mean it?”

( _ I hate you _ .)

“I do,” Emma said, because she could still read him, too. 

“Whatever you think of me now,” he said, “I still care about you, Swan.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, “me, too.” His body shifted and Emma moved with him, letting herself drift closer. 

Just for a minute.

\--

Robin and Will were almost exactly the way Emma remembered them.

Right down to Will Scarlet’s big mouth.

But Henry had been smiling the entire walk back into town, so Emma couldn’t say no when Robin encouraged her to join them--along with Henry, of course--for dinner at Granny’s.

“Grilled cheese, Swan,” Killian said, as if he needed to entice her.

“And French fries?” Emma asked, raising an eyebrow.

He looked affronted. “Onion rings,” he said. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Emma agreed. “I was just testing you.”

Ruby squealed when they all walked in together, running up to Killian and pulling him into a hug. 

“Miss me, did you, Red?” Killian’s eyebrow was perfectly arched.

“I didn’t get to see you properly at the wedding,” Ruby said, smacking him on the shoulder.

“No hitting the customers, Ruby,” Granny shouted from behind the counter.

“Don’t be jealous, Granny,” Ruby countered.

“Aye, Granny, don’t be jealous,” Killian said, the eyebrow paired with a devastating smile and turned on Granny Lucas. “You know my heart belongs to you.”

“Nice try, Jones,” Granny said. “You’re still paying.”

Killian laughed--the first time Emma had seen him laugh in, well, forever. His eyes crinkled and he threw his head back as he dodged when Ruby tried to hit him again. They settled into a booth, squeezing in with Henry and Roland chattering excitedly across the table, and it was when Will passed the ketchup over to Emma that he noticed.

“Nice ink, Emma,” he said, and Emma almost dropped the bottle in her hurry to pull her sleeve and the leather laces she always kept tied around her wrist back over the tattoo.

“Oh,” Emma said, trying to keep smiling. “Um. Thanks.”

“What kind of flower is that?”

“It’s a buttercup!” Henry said. “I wanted to get a tattoo, too, only Mom says I’m too young.”

“You’re definitely too young,” Killian and Emma said at the same time.

“Jinx!” Roland cried, and he and Henry started giggling.

“Why keep it all covered, then?” Will wanted to know. “With...whatever those are. Shoelaces?”

“Yeah.” Emma ran her hand across the leather. “They, uh, belonged to someone I knew. He died. A while ago.”

“Died?” Killian’s entire attention was focused on her. “Who died, Swan?”

Ruby put a hand on his shoulder and leaned in, whispering in his ear, and Killian’s expression froze. “I guess we’re all entitled to our  _ reminders _ , then.” His right hand went around his neck, rubbing the back of his head, and Emma saw the movement of the chains under his shirt.

She pulled her mouth into something that vaguely resembled a smile, turning her attention back to the kids, but the light-hearted mood was still shattered. She excused herself and was walking toward the restroom when she felt Killian’s hand on her wrist.

“Humbert, Swan? Graham Humbert?”

And it wasn’t fair that it was  _ Killian _ who sounded hurt at the very idea when it hadn’t been in  _ his _ arms that Graham had died, laughing and smiling and kissing her one minute and utterly gone the next, dead instantaneously from a heart attack at twenty-nine.

(It wasn’t fair that when Emma dreamed about it, half of the time she saw  _ Killian’s _ eyes, empty and lifeless, staring back at her.)

(Maybe it was a good thing she was still taking the medication Dr. Hopper had prescribed, because Emma could feel another panic attack bubbling up through her body.)

“Shit,” Killian muttered, his eyes running up and down her face, like he could see the anxiety building up in her bloodstream. 

Emma gasped a breath, pulling the air into her body, letting it fill her abdomen, slowly letting it out. “It’s fine, Killian,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m going to go sit back down now.”

And she did, sliding back in next to Henry, pulling him close to her, managing something like a real smile as her kid explained to Will Scarlet the plot of  _ The Princess Bride _ and ignoring the speculative look Will got in his eyes as Henry talked about how the hero, Westley, had gone off to sea in the hopes of proving himself worthy; that was when Killian excused himself and didn’t come back. Emma tried not to let herself care, focusing instead on Henry’s laugh, and how much he and Roland kept giggling; how Will kept stealing his French fries and Robin got the two boys a dessert to share.

When she walked outside, waiting in the courtyard as Henry and Roland hung back and tried to pretend they weren’t dead-on-their-feet tired, she heard Killian’s voice drift over from one of the outdoor tables. 

“Fancy a drink, Swan?” 

She ignored him.

“Come on, Emma, don’t leave a man to drink alone.”

He couldn’t possibly be drunk already, Emma knew, but something in his voice pulled at her. She ignored that, too.

“I don’t need a drink,” Emma said, holding out a hand as Henry started down the stairs. “Or a man. Goodnight, Killian.”

\--

The buzz of the phone in her pocket stirred Emma out of a light doze, and she sat up, careful not to disturb either her kid or the dog curled up peacefully next to him.

“Swan?” He sounded sober.

“It’s late, Killian,” she said, sighing. “I’m exhausted, and I don’t want to say anything I might regret.”

“Obviously,” he said, “I already have.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “Okay.” She was silent for a minute.

“Swan?”

“Listen, I appreciate you saying that,” Emma said. “But don’t you think it’s gonna take more than a phone conversation to fix everything we’ve fucked up in the past ten years?”

Silence on his end this time.

“Aye,” he said. Then: “May I come over?”

“Did you miss the part about how it’s late?” Emma said. “Henry’s asleep and--”

There was a knock at the door. Emma stood still, considering, then walked to the door and opened it.

“This isn’t exactly a doorway conversation, either.”

“Right,” he said, and there was the slightest hint of venom in his voice. “Because you never have potentially life-altering conversations whilst hovering in doorways at off hours.”

Emma sucked in a breath, trying to muster up the energy to glare at him.

(But he was right.)

She stepped out onto the porch, closing the door behind her.

“Shit,” Killian muttered again.

“You know that could encompass a whole myriad of things, right?”

“You’re still mad at me,” he said. “Let’s start with that.”

“I’m not mad,” she said. 

She was lying; Emma knew it, and Killian knew it.

“Aye,” he said, and the venom was back. “Neither am I.”

Liar. They were both liars.

“It’s easier to be mad,” she amended.

“Because you feel like if you stop being mad,” Killian said, “you’re letting your guard down again.”

“I’ve spent my entire life never letting my guard down,” Emma said. “My entire life, always waiting for someone to disappoint me. Always hoping that when I got someplace new, it would be the right place, like ‘click your heels three times’ and ‘no place like home’ and all of that yellow-brick-road bullshit, just somewhere I actually belonged.”

“That’s a lovely tale, Swan,” Killian said, stepping back to lean against the porch railing, his legs crossed at the ankle and his arms crossed over his chest. “But the truth is a little more gruesome, isn’t it?”

Okay.

Okay.

They were really doing this.

“I said that I loved you, Killian,” Emma said. “I can literally count on one hand the number of people in my life I’ve said that to and before I even woke up the next morning you were already gone. And you want the truth, Killian?”

He just stared at her, the muscles in his jaw twitching the way they always did when he got tense and angry.

“I was relieved.”

“Relieved.” He said it with no emotion at all.

“Glad,” Emma said, “that you were the first one to fuck it up, and not me. You don’t make me feel safe or comfortable, Killian. I feel like I’m climbing a mountain, and the air is getting thinner, and  _ you’re _ the oxygen. It’s overwhelming.”

The silence between them was palpable, a heavy thing with weight and texture. Then Killian said: “I didn’t know about Humbert, Swan.”

“Five years ago,” Emma said. “That’s when he died. Right after you and Milah got married.”

Killian flinched at the mention of his deceased wife’s name. “You and he were--”

“I don’t know what we were,” Emma said. “But it was nice with him. Easy. I think I could have loved him.” 

That was the first time she had ever said that out loud. Emma took a deep breath and ran her fingers over the laces.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever said that out loud,” she said. “So, yeah, Killian, I keep a reminder, so I don’t forget that no matter what I do, people always leave.”

“I’m still here, Swan,” was all he said.

“And don’t you think I was terrified,” Emma said, raising her voice, “that you wouldn’t be? You say that you know why I left, Killian, but did it ever occur to you what it felt like when the  _ boy I loved _ told me he was leaving me, to enlist, barely a few weeks after Liam died?”

Killian said nothing; his mouth hung slightly open.

Emma asked, “Do you think that was easy for me, Killian?”

“How would I know, Swan?” Killian retorted. “You never talked to me about it! You just left!” He ran his hand around the back of his neck. “All of those phone calls, messages, letters, and you didn’t say anything!”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“You were  _ afraid _ ,” Killian countered. “Afraid to talk, to reveal yourself, to trust me.” 

“A person can only hold out hope for so long,” Emma said, “and be hurt so many times before trust just seems, I dunno, impossible. So I left. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” Emma said. “Only..out of sight. That’s why I came back. And that’s why I kept running.”

“That’s what I don’t understand, Swan,” Killian said, straightening and walking toward her, crowding her personal space. “You had a home. You--we--were a part of something.” He repeated it: “We were a part of something, something amazing. I wish you had told me--”

“I told you,” Emma said, then, before he could protest this obvious lie, she added, “Every night I told you. Every time I dreamt about that day on your porch, it ended differently.”

Killian looked stricken, opening his mouth and licking his lips, starting to speak and then changing his mind. Eventually he said, “What were you looking for?”

“Home,” she said. “Because of something I learned a long time ago: home is the place that when you leave, you just miss it.”

Killian put a hand under her chin, tilting her face up so they were eye-to-eye. 

There was still so much they weren’t saying, that she wasn’t saying: she hadn’t told him about the house, or Ruth’s letter that she still hadn’t read, or that she had spent the afternoon before going to the docks starting to pack up her stuff, and Henry’s, to go back to New York. But there was one thing that needed to be said, before anything else could happen. She could keep all of the reminders she thought she needed--the pendant around her neck and the laces around her wrist--but the simple fact that Ruth was gone. She had lost another person, and she didn’t have that many special people left.

Turns out, Emma had actually meant what she’d accidentally-on-purpose blurted to Killian after the funeral: she was tired of running.

She was tired of the past and tired of the darkness and tired of feeling nothing.

“It’s you, Killian. You’re my home,” Emma said.

She was tired of being afraid.

That was the third time she kissed Killian Jones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooner or later, this cold--it's gonna break  
> and our hands will be warm again.  
> (but all i want is not to need you now)  
> sooner or later, this code--it's gonna break  
> and our words will be heard again.  
> (but all i want are vows of silence, now)  
> and the frightening facts   
> we've been facing our backs to for so long  
> are begging for eyes  
> to bear witness to lies and indifference  
> now we're saying aloud  
> the things we've declared in our silence...
> 
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "turpentine chaser"


	5. your eyes say the joke's on me

When Graham died, Emma felt horrible; a deep, gnawing grief that clutched at her insides and took her breath away. She left Boston, drifting north until she hit Portland, waiting tables as she went to make ends meet. Henry was young enough that she could tell herself it wasn’t too disruptive, but with the enrollment deadline for kindergarten looming, Emma made a decision.

She was going to Florida. 

She and Neal had never made it there, but it had always hung in the back of her mind as a kind of Utopia--a perfect place that couldn’t possibly exist. So she was going to take Henry, and they were going to find Tallahassee. Emma made another decision, too, as she started getting the boxes unpacked: she’d had enough of feeling bad. 

She would rather feel nothing--that would be better, or easier. And when she met the owner of the furniture shop on her street while shopping for an end table for Henry, she amended that decision: maybe it would be easier not being with someone she could really care about.

Walsh handed her the bill for Henry’s table and asked her out before she’d put her wallet away, and Emma said yes.

They went to lunch.

“Tell me about Henry’s father,” Walsh said.

“Oh,” Emma said, shaking her head. “Long story. Trust me.”

“Okay,” Walsh said, forking another bite of his salad.

Emma waited for him to press, to push her to talk about it, but he seemed content to keep eating his salad. “Do you think,” Emma said, “that two people can get to know each other without ever going into their long stories?”

“Sure,” Walsh said, flashing a smile. “I’m interested in the person you are now, Emma.”

So Emma and Walsh had started dating.

It was easy.

It was nothing.

Dating turned to sleeping together turned into the occasional weekend at his place turned into looking at the classified ads together turned into a ring on a plate with an ice cream sundae.

She was late to dinner, wearing one of her best dresses and her tallest heels and fresh off of a recent commission from a small bail bonds company.

(Graham had been trying to sell her on the idea of working together, because “Storybrooke is a hotbed of criminals and missing persons, now?” Emma joked. But the truth was that Graham’s reputation got him work all over New England, and most people didn’t care that he needed a few hours’ head start when the case was tricky enough. Turned out that Emma had a knack for it, too, and had started taking jobs from a bonds agency in Boston to make extra money.

Before.)

“Emma Swan always gets her man,” Walsh said, eyeing her appreciatively.

“Thank you,” she said, kicking her heel back in a mock curtsy. 

“You remember our first date?” he asked. “You were being you, so I couldn’t swing a dinner, and I brought you here for lunch, which didn’t stop you from ordering a dessert that wasn’t on the menu.”

“I just wanted to see if you could sweet-talk the kitchen into getting me an ice cream sundae,” Emma laughed.

“I bribed the chef,” Walsh said. “They made one up.”

“I remember,” Emma said.

“I don’t want to freak you out,” Walsh said. “But I love you. I love Henry. I love our lives together.”

Emma’s breath caught.

“I want a future together.”

( _ I can see a future for us. A happy one. _ )

“Emma Swan, will you marry me?”

The phone rang, and Emma pressed the ‘ignore’ button, trying to focus.

The phone rang again.

“Should you get that?” Walsh asked, and Emma looked down: it was David. 

“I--” she hit the ‘ignore’ button for the second time, and immediately the phone started ringing again. “It’s my brother,” she said, getting up and dropping her napkin on the empty chair. “I guess I’d better take this.”

Walsh found her by her car, barely standing upright, her breath coming in heaving sobs, several minutes later.

“Here I thought,” Walsh said, “the worst thing that could happen was that you’d say no, but I never thought that you’d walk out on the--” He stopped. “Emma?”

“I have to go,” she said.

“Did something happen to David?” Walsh asked.

Emma could only shake her head. “I have to go,” she said again.

“Okay,” Walsh said. “Do you need me to pick up Henry?”

“No,” Emma said, trying to find words. “He’ll stay with Mrs. Cuse. I’ll only be gone a few days, maybe a week? How far is it to drive to Maryland from here?”

“I’m sorry, did you say  _ Maryland _ ?” Walsh was taken aback. “Emma? What are you talking about? Let’s go pick up Henry and we’ll get this sorted out, okay?”

Emma kept shaking her head. “I’ll call him on my way home, stop and get some clothes,” she said. “Mrs. Cuse can take care of him.” She was getting more determined with every word to get into the car, change her clothes, and get on the road. She turned to pull at the door handle, fumbling with her key for a minute before she got the door open and slid in.

“It’s a long story, Walsh,” she said, turning back to face him. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Emma,” Walsh said as she closed the door. “I love you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Emma said, and drove away.

\--

It was a training accident, David said. Killian’s ship had been off the coast of Virginia near the Norfolk Naval Base and there was an explosion.

“Killian got pinned underneath some debris,” David explained. “Made it worse by trying to get out from under and diving right back into the water, in an attempt to save someone. He’s unconscious, in a coma, and they’re not sure if they can save his left hand. They’ve choppered him to Bethesda and the hospital there for surgery. I’m waiting for a flight now.”

Emma nodded even though David couldn’t see her, and even though it made her almost drop the phone from where it was wedged in between her shoulder and her cheek.

“Emma,” David said. “You should be here. We’re the only family Killian has left, with Milah gone.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Milah had died just a few months before, less than three years after they’d gotten married; an aneurysm near her heart had ruptured.

“David,” Emma said. “The person Killian tried to save, did they--”

It seemed important to know.

“No, Em,” David said. “He didn’t make it. But you should be here.”

“I know,” Emma said. “I’m on my way. I’m driving, so I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Maybe the sound of that old rustbucket will be enough to wake him up,” David joked.

\--

“I don’t know what he was thinking,” Emma said. “I mean, it’s fast, right? We’ve only been together eight months.”

_ Beep...Beep...Beep. _

Emma was perched on a standard-issue, uncomfortable-as-fuck hospital room visitor’s chair with a heart rate monitor and a respirator for a soundtrack and permanent goosebumps pushing through her skin from the constant rush of cold air circulating through the room.

“I’ve got leftovers in my fridge older than that,” she said.

_ Beep...Beep...Beep. _

“How long did you wait before you asked Milah?” she asked Killian’s comatose form, before sighing and answering her own question. “I bet you just looked at her and knew, right? Swept her off her feet. Poor woman never had a chance.”

Killian’s face was bruised and swollen, and what was visible of his left hand underneath the bandages didn’t look like a hand anymore.

_ Beep...Beep...Beep.  _

David was gone, sleeping at the local motel, but Emma couldn’t. Just like the night of Liam’s funeral, Emma knew she couldn’t leave him to be alone.

“I don’t do well with fast,” Emma said. “Not that you didn’t know that already.” She pulled a hand through her hair, untying the messy topknot before resting her face in her hands. “We should do this more often. Not, like, this--” Emma gestured haplessly at the room and the wheeled bed and the gown-draped, unconscious Killian spread out on it. “But...talk. Be friends.”

_ Beep...Beep...Beep. _

Emma had found Killian’s necklace and wedding ring in a plastic bag hung under the hospital bed, and put the ring on the table next to him. The necklace she kept wrapped around her palm until Liam’s ring imprinted the skin there.

“God, Killian, I miss this. I miss you.”

This was all of Emma’s worst nightmares come to life: an unarticulated, visceral fear that had lurked in the back of her mind since Liam had died. She didn’t have enough people in her life that she could handle losing someone like this, to a whim and a chance. But those whims and chances were part of daily life in the Navy and Killian had wanted to pursue them--and she had walked away from him.

_ Beep...Beep...Beep. _

Walking away had been supposed to release the pressure valve inside of her, the intensity of the feelings she had for him and the fear that she would lose him. Only she had walked away a little too long, and still ended up hovering by the side of a hospital bed, and Emma did not feel like she had protected herself by leaving.

She had fucked up.

She should have held onto him with everything she’d had, even if this was how it was meant to end.

His hair looked blacker than ever against the stark white hospital pillow, the curl of his ear more prominent with the regulation length instead of the unruly mop he’d favored when he was younger. Emma smiled faintly, remembering the fairy tales David had read to her when they were kids, and tried to picture Killian as an elf. An elf, she reasoned, would not be in a hospital bed because of a training accident. No, it would be something more romantic than that, more exciting--a quest for an artifact, maybe, a sword fight or a witch’s curse--just waiting for the heroine to come to his aid and wake him with true love’s kiss. To pull him back from the abyss and out of hell and live together, happily ever after.

_ Beep...Beep...Beep. _

Emma had never wanted to believe in fairy stories more than she did in that moment. She stood up and crossed the room, walking to the bed, pulling the thin blanket back and nudging Killian over until she could almost crawl into the bed with him. She wanted to pull his head into her lap, to comfort him the way she had done the first and only night they’d ever spent alone together. She settled for leaning her head on his shoulder and pressing a kiss against the side of his forehead.

“Killian,” she said. “Come back to me.”

Emma held her breath and waited.

Nothing.

She twisted, planting her feet back on the floor, and tried to stand up.

She was restrained by a light grip around her wrist, barely more than the brush of a finger against her skin.

“Hello, beautiful,” Killian said. His voice was raspy and weak from disuse. “Is this...dream? ‘M dreaming?”

“Not dreaming,” she said, though a part of Emma thought  _ she _ might be. “Let me get a look at you.”

“I...rather think...the explosion sort of...knocked the handsome…out of me, love,” he said, visibly struggling to stay awake enough to form the words.

“Nothing is that powerful,” Emma said, cupping her hand against Killian’s face as he fell asleep again.

(That was the second time she kissed Killian Jones.)

Emma put Liam’s ring in his hand, curling the fingers around it to make a fist, before she left the room to phone David. 

\--

David persuaded her to go to the motel, to shower and to sleep and to brush her hair, to put on clean clothes and grab one of his extra sweatshirts. “The doctors don’t think he’ll wake up again for several hours, Em,” he explained. “They said it’s basically a miracle that he’s already regained consciousness.”

\--

Emma wasn’t sure what kind of greeting to expect but “you shouldn’t be here” hadn’t quite made her list. She pulled her fingers away from her lips, not sure why she felt compelled to remind herself continually that she had kissed Killian Jones--again--and said, very articulately, “What?”

Emma hadn’t even expected Killian to be awake again.

“You...shouldn’t be here,” he said, repeating himself and enunciating each syllable for emphasis.

“What’s wrong?”

Killian closed his eyes and grimaced as if that was an answer to her question, and Emma stopped in the doorway.

When she had woken up that morning in the shitty Bethesda motel, she’d actually felt  _ okay _ .

Killian was alive. She had seen him. 

Suddenly anything seemed possible. They’d both made mistakes, okay, but maybe now…

Something like hope had bubbled up inside of her that morning.

Like maybe happily-ever-after could happen for the little Lost Girl who had never let herself find a home.

“I don’t know...what you’re doing here, Swan,” Killian said. “I don’t want to know.”

“I’m here to see you,” Emma said slowly. 

“Ambush me, more like,” Killian muttered, and the words were coming more slowly, almost like he was drifting off again. “Just like...after Liam...loved you, Swan…”

“You did,” Emma whispered, taking the few steps necessary to reach the bedside. “Always and forever, that’s what you said.” She took his hand and he shook it away.

“You want to know...how you get forever, Swan?” He was angry and agitated, struggling to sit up and frustrated when he couldn’t. His hair was in disarray and his eyes were bloodshot, the red somehow making the blue of his irises seem even bluer. “When someone...tells you they love you...gives you a ring...you fucking  _ stay _ .” Killian turned his head, facing away from her, and Emma followed his gaze to the side table where she had left his wedding ring.

Next to it was the chain with Liam’s ring on it.

“You think...you’re here...to convince me that we have a future together,” Killian said, laughing in a way that sounded more like a wheeze with a darkness in his voice that Emma had never heard before. “Too much has happened between us.”

“That’s not--” Emma sputtered. “I never wanted this for you.”

“Cut anchor, Swan,” Killian said. “Leave the dead weight behind.”

Emma moved back from the bed--side-stepping, avoiding, backing away.

“Don’t do this,” she said when she reached the door. “You’re better than this, Killian.”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. Emma--” 

“Yeah?”

Killian swallowed. “I wish...you never came back…to Storybrooke...”

Emma bit her lip, determined not to cry.

“You...ruined my life. I hate you, Emma.”

So much for happy endings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'this is where i said i've had enough:  
> no one should ever feel the way that i feel now.  
> a walking open wound;  
> a trophy display of bruises;  
> and i don't believe that i'm getting any better.  
> so don't be a liar.  
> don't say that 'everything's working'  
> when everything's broken  
> and you smile like a saint  
> but you curse like a sailor  
> and your eyes say the joke's on me.'
> 
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "saints and sailors"


	6. things so impossible

Emma was not afraid when she woke up the morning after the third time she’d kissed Killian Jones.

She was terrified.

Henry burst into her bedroom, the dog on his heels, and Emma couldn’t help but run her fingers against her lips because she swore she could still feel Killian there--that the taste of him still lingered. She shoved the cat off the edge of the bed, turned Henry around, sending him to feed the animals, and stumbled to the bathroom, peering at herself in the mirror and she was suddenly sure of one thing she had always suspected--

“Mom? Where’s the dog food?”

\--every other kiss she’d had in her life had been wrong.

Emma took a deep breath, pulling her hair into a ponytail and hastily running a brush over her teeth. 

“Mom?”

“Coming, kid,” Emma called.

“Someone’s here,” Henry said.

Emma’s pulse quickened.

“It’s Mary Margaret,” Henry said. “Oooh, and she brought doughnuts!”

Emma laughed and forced herself to breathe normally. “Save me a bear claw, kid!”

“Finders keepers, mom!”

But Mary Margaret, apparently valuing her life, had been smart enough to bring two bear claws. She handed one to Emma and poured her a cup of coffee while shooing Henry back upstairs to shower and get dressed.

“So,” Mary Margaret said, “how are you, Emma?”

“I’m…”  
... _fine._  
_...coping._  
_...glad all of it is over._  
_...considering packing up and leaving before the end of the day._  
_...tired of running and want to stay._  
...not sure how to function in a world without Ruth Nolan in it.

“I kissed Killian,” she said.

Mary Margaret’s mouth opened, forming a silent ‘oh’.

“Yeah,” Emma said.

“Why?” Mary Margaret asked. 

“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I was feeling…”

“How was it?” Mary Margaret asked, her lips tilting upward in a smile.

(The press of his lips against hers had been gentle and searching while his fingers ghosted through her hair before threading through it to cup his hand against her cheek and Emma had to stop herself from putting her fingertips against her mouth again.)

“Did it mean anything?” 

“I don’t know,” Emma said again. “It was just a kiss.”

(It made her knees buckle; sweet and sad, like the world had gone dark and was made new again. And when it was over, when he pulled himself slowly away and fucking _smiled_ at her…)

Mary Margaret shifted, putting both of her hands over one of Emma’s across the table.

(“ _So,_ ” he’d said, touching his forehead to hers. “ _Good talk._ ” He pulled away, smiling again. _“And it’s about bloody time.”_ ) 

(“ _Sleep well, love.”_ )

“I’m not staying anyway,” Emma tried.

“Sure,” Mary Margaret agreed. “Just as well. You’d just wreck him again.”

“Hey,” Emma protested. “You didn’t even know us back then.”

“I know you now, Emma,” Mary Margaret said. “I also know Killian, who is basically my brother-in-law. As for you--you’re _my_ best friend and my sister-in-law. And you, actually staying for something big? Let’s just say that’s not what you’re known for.”

“Good thing I’m leaving, then,” Emma retorted.

“Mmm,” Mary Margaret said. “I get what you’re doing, you know.”

Emma leaned back in her chair and sighed.

“You don’t want to open yourself to the hope that it could finally work out,” Mary Margaret said. “But you should.”

“Why?” Emma asked. “Because after ten years of epic fuckups I’m suddenly in a good place to make things work out?”

“Because,” Mary Margaret said, “you deserve a happy ending, Emma. And happy endings always start with hope.”

\--

It started when Roland knocked on the front door, looking for Henry. Emma answered with a smile, waving as Henry and the dog raced out the door, running to where Robin waited for them.

She didn’t say anything to Killian, who was standing next to Robin; she just closed the door and went back to work. The pile of her clothes had reached its zenith, or near enough--just the load in the washer waiting to be dried and folded. Henry’s clothes were already clean and stacked.

Emma spent the morning just walking around the house, touching the walls, feeling the ancient wallpaper crackling under her fingertips as she gathered everything she had scattered around the house during her stay. 

Killian texted her to meet them for lunch.

She didn’t answer. The cleaning gave her a task and something to focus on, letting her mind clear out until she almost felt normal.

Her house--it was _her house_. 

There was no way she could keep this house. But-- 

How many more connections to the people in her life--to her family--could she afford to lose?

Emma tried to imagine the house being sold, a new family moving in to make memories. All she could picture was Henry, redecorating David’s old room while the dog set up its permanent home at the foot of his bed. She imagined hosting David and Mary Margaret for family dinner at the table where she had eaten most of the happiest meals of her life. Walking Henry to school and having girls’ night with Ruby on something resembling a regular basis.

Her phone dinged: _You’re avoiding me._

_I’m not avoiding,_ she typed back. _Just... dealing with stuff._

Again: _Go ahead._ And before she could come up with another denial, one more: _But I’m actually quite perceptive, Swan. This is avoiding._

She remembered David and Killian fighting over the radio while she laughed and danced; her head in her brother’s lap and her feet in Killian’s when David would read to them; falling asleep in front of the old fireplace after watching a movie, waking up with Buttercup curled contentedly against her legs.

And later, at the end, cuddling into her mother’s arms, on her mother’s bed, the sound of the heavy fan and the rasp of her labored breathing drowning out everything else. Emma crossed her arms across her chest, remembering the way Ruth had pulled her close to whisper in her ear: “I love you. So much. Bunches and bunches.”

Emma sighed.

\--

My sweet duckling, Ruth had written:

_I want you to have the house._

_Don’t say that your brother should have it, or convince yourself that you do not deserve it--because what you deserve more than anything, my love, is the one thing you never seemed able to convince yourself you could have--a real home._

_I know how long it took you to believe that you could have a family, but I need to tell you a secret: we did not give you a family. You brought one back to us, to your brother and me, after David’s father passed. Because of you, the three of us were able to make a new family, to fill this house with laughter and memories, and because of you, we had Henry and Mary Margaret, we had Ruby and Regina, and even Killian Jones._

_I know why you felt you had to leave all of those years ago, my darling. Take this opportunity to start over, to put down roots, and maybe even make amends._

_You’ve always had a home here, Emma._

_Now you always will._

_And once you’ve allowed yourself to believe that you can stay, look for me in the springtime. I’ll be there in the daffodils we planted that first autumn you came to us._

_I’ll be with you always._

_\--Mom_

\--

_Click your heels three times_ , Emma thought. _You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas_.

She pulled her red leather jacket on, looped her scarf around her neck, and went in search of Killian.

_Follow the yellow brick road_. 

_There’s no place like home._

\--

The woman hugging Killian like she was holding on for dear life was petite and had long, thick red hair. Killian kissed the top of her head and led her down the dock, his left hand hovering just above the small of her back as she leaned into him.

Emma started backing away just as Killian lifted his head and saw her, his face lighting up in a genuine smile that Emma would swear she had nearly forgotten even though it had been etched into her brain for more than a decade.

“Swan!” He called out with a wave.

Who was--he _wouldn’t_ \--

Her phone rang.

“Emma,” Ruby’s voice was authoritative and she did not wait for an answer. “Meet me at the diner. I need to show you something.”

“Ruby,” Emma tried, and was cut off.

“Not an invitation, Em,” Ruby said, hanging up.

Emma shoved her hands into her pockets, staring at the horizon for a good ten minutes. She had felt better after the cleaning, like she was accomplishing something; now she just felt like a jumbled mess again with her mother’s words running through her head.

(Killian had been _happy_ to see her, in spite of the redhead.) 

(He’d kissed her, last night.) 

(Okay, she’d kissed him, but he had kissed her back like a drowning man coming into contact with oxygen for the first time.) 

(That’s what he was for her--oxygen.)

She heaved a deep breath and turned back toward the diner.

\--

Ruby had a shot glass of vodka waiting when Emma came through the door.

“Okay,” Emma said when she had downed the shot. “What’s the big emergency?”

Ruby laughed, gesturing around her. “What do you think?” she asked, and Emma turned to follow her friend’s hand across the room.

The usual sea of tables crammed too closely together had been cleared and stacked, the chairs arranged in a loose sort of horseshoe. The jukebox was lit up and fronted by a small, hastily-erected podium topped by two precariously-perched chairs, two microphones and two guitars leaning on stands.

Killian and his red-haired lady-friend were sitting at a booth, sipping coffee, and had been joined by a brunette since Emma had seen them last. Robin and Will had the booth behind them, where Henry and Roland were tossing French fries at each other. Regina Mills sat at the opposite end of the counter, watching Henry with a smile and eyeing Robin with something like speculation.

“Ruby,” Emma said, not sure what she was accusing her friend of, “what the hell is all of this?”

“It’s a surprise, babe,” Ruby said. “Just a little something we all cooked up for you and David after the shit week you’ve had.”

Before she had finished speaking, David and Mary Margaret breezed in, David’s jaw dropping and Mary Margaret with a smug grin of satisfaction on her face. 

“Emma,” David said, “what are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“I know what you know,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and following him toward Killian’s table.

(Her feet were absolutely _not_ dragging.)

(Liar.)

“Dave!” Killian called. “Mary Margaret!” He stood up and stepped forward, pulling David into a hug and giving Mary Margaret a kiss on her cheek. 

“Ariel?” Mary Margaret exclaimed, peering around Killian. The noise she made most resembled a squeal of glee. “And Belle! Oh! How wonderful to see you both!”

“Killian’s doing,” Belle--the brunette, apparently--said with a laugh.

“Oi!” Will called from his table. “I resent that!” Belle laughed again as Will blew her a kiss.

“And I dragged Ariel up from Portland,” Belle said, grabbing her friend’s hand and giving it a squeeze. 

“My husband served under Killian before he passed,” Ariel explained to Emma, breaking off whatever conversation she was having with Mary Margaret. “We all go back a ways.” 

“This is Emma,” Mary Margaret said, suddenly remembering herself. “My sister-in-law, and also a...friend of Killian’s.”

“I’m throwing myself at her feet,” Killian corrected, pouting. “She just hasn’t noticed yet.”

Mary Margaret laughed, looking delighted. “Try Milk Duds,” she suggested. “She never did grow out of that sweet tooth.”

“Noted,” Killian said seriously.

Emma took in the scene before her, her shoulders relaxing before she even realized she had tensed up, and saw Killian smirk. He raised an eyebrow, questioningly, as if to say _Really?_

Emma nodded. _Sorry_ , she mouthed.

Killian winked and turned toward Will. “You ready, mate?”

Will took a swig of beer and nodded in the affirmative. “Let’s do the thing.”

“Red!” Killian raised his voice over the enthusiastic greetings still taking over his table. “Just say the word!”

Ruby gave him a thumbs-up and went to dim the lights and Emma watched, thunderstruck, as Will and Killian settled themselves on the wooden pallet that had been repurposed for their stage.

“Since when do you play guitar?” Emma asked suspiciously.

Killian ran his hand through his hair and gestured at Belle. “Her fault,” he said simply.

“He means,” Belle interjected, “that I recommended it to him as a form of physical therapy for his hand.”

“Aye,” Killian said. “It was either that--or knitting.” Killian’s eyes met Emma’s and his gaze softened, a faint smile playing across his lips.

“I taught you to knit,” Belle protested. “You just took a fancy to that thing.” She glanced at Emma, who had pulled her scarf--her favorite scarf, t _he scarf that Killian had made for her_ \--tighter around her neck, still smiling. “Will taught him.”

“Got natural, god-given talent, I have,” Will affirmed, running his pick over the strings for emphasis. “This one--he’s okay, I guess.”

Killian laughed good-naturedly and finished tuning his guitar. He looked at Will, nodded, and they launched into “Free Falling,” by Tom Petty. Emma turned to David and rolled her eyes, but she was biting her lip to hide her smile. Growing up they’d been assaulted on a near-constant basis by David’s love of _the classics, Em_ and Killian would sing along while Emma would just roll her eyes and say, “Whatever, Dad.” So it wasn’t, like, a surprise that Killian could sing; the shock was hearing him in practiced harmony with Will Scarlet, confidently strumming chords as Will’s backup. Tom Petty faded into Van Morrison faded into The Eagles--David’s ridiculous, old-man playlist from bygone days, painstakingly taped off of the classic rock radio station and used CDs--and then, just when she thought Killian and Scarlet were going to take a break, Killian winked at her again.

“One, two, one--two--three--four,” he said as the chords started, so familiar that they almost hurt.

_“I woke up in mid-afternoon, because that’s when it all hurts the most,”_ Will sang. “ _I dreamt I never know anyone at the party, and I’m always the host.”_

Will nodded and Killian took over: _“If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts,_ ” he sang, tapping his foot with the rhythm in a way that was contagious. “ _You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast.”_

David grabbed Emma from behind, pulling her into a dance. Emma was sure the smile that had broken out across her face matched his--this was _their_ song, the one song Emma had always claimed she could stand whenever David and Killian had started squabbling over radio stations, making them crank up the volume whenever it came on and dancing stupidly around the living room, with David or with Killian or all three of them together:

_I am an idiot, walking a tightrope of fortune and fame_  
_I am an acrobat, swinging trapezes through circles of flame._  
_If you’ve never stared off into the distance, then your life is a shame_  
Though I’ll never forget your face--sometimes I can’t remember my name 

The rush of feeling hit Emma and she threw herself into it, losing herself in the endless, comfortable repetitions of the song as she followed David’s lead, laughing with him and letting him spin her ‘round while Will and Killian kept trading off verses and joining together on the choruses. 

_Hey, Mrs. Potter don’t cry_  
_Hey, Mrs. Potter, I know why_  
But hey, Mrs. Potter won’t you talk to me?

About halfway through, she grabbed Henry, pulling him along the same way David had pulled her, and her kid’s smile just about lit up the room as the song ended and everyone burst into applause and Emma knew--

_This_ was that feeling, the one she had been missing all of these years. 

And it was exactly the kind of thing that would never happen in New York or Boston or Tallahassee or wherever she was trying to convince herself to run.

“FREEBIRD!” David shouted, waving his lit-up phone screen as the guys stood up, putting the instruments back on their stands. Killian smacked him on the shoulder as he came up behind Emma, wrapping his arm around her and kissing the side of her head and Emma thought _this_ was a pretty good feeling, too, ignoring whatever it was David’s eyebrows and mouth were doing as he watched them.

“What do you think, lad?” Killian asked Henry. “Mission accomplished?”

Henry nodded enthusiastically, high-fiving Killian. “Totally,” he said. “Operation Jukebox is officially a success.”

“Hold up,” Emma said, grabbing Killian’s arm and removing it from her shoulder. “Mission? Operation?”

“Your boy’s idea, Swan,” Killian said. “He wanted to cheer you both up, asked me if I had any intelligence that might help him on his quest.” Robin called his name and Killian said, “Excuse me, love.”

“This was your idea?” Emma asked Henry, kneeling so that they were at eye level.

“I just--” he sighed. “You looked so happy in that old photo, Mom. I wanted you to have that again.” 

Emma crushed him against her so hard that he squawked. “Ow! Mom!”

“I love you, kid,” she said.

He hugged her a little tighter. “I love you more, Mom.”

“This was perfect,” David said, his hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Thank you so much, Henry.”

“You’re welcome, Uncle David,” Henry said, turning and trying to give him a hug as well. He failed only because David had gone full-on Nolan-hug on him, sweeping him up off the floor.

Emma stood, surreptitiously wiping tears from her eyes, and found herself face-to-face a bemused, half-smiling Regina Mills.

“What?” Emma asked, feeling self-conscious.

“I just wanted to say hello to Henry, and invite him to come visit with me tonight,” Regina said. One of Regina’s first cases had been helping Emma keep custody of Henry, and she still had a soft spot for him. She’d stayed in touch, with letters and the occasional phone call or FaceTime chat, and made sure to get in a visit with Henry every time they were in town. She’d even pitched in over these last few terrible weeks, keeping Henry when everything at Ruth’s house--at _home_ \--got to be too much.

(At _home_.)

(Maybe if she practiced saying it enough times, it would start to feel real.)

“I picked up a few of those comic books you love, Henry,” Regina was saying, “and rented the Avengers movie.”

“Cool!” Henry turned to Emma, eyes pleading. “Can I, Mom?”

Emma nodded and watched as he ran off to tell Roland of his good fortune. 

“You can invite your friend and his dad, if you would like,” Regina called after him. She turned her attention back to Emma. “And you can thank me later.”

“Thank you?” Emma said. “For giving you an excuse to hit on Robin Locksley?”

“For giving you a chance to deal with _that_ ,” Regina said, waving expressively at Killian. “If the way you were making eyes got any stupider I was going to throw up. Just--go do something about it, I’m begging you. I’ll drop him off with Mary Margaret and David and you can pick him up tomorrow.” 

“I was not ‘making eyes’,” Emma lied, eliciting an eyeroll and a groan from Regina.

Killian reappeared at her side, offering his arm for her to take. “Come, love,” he said. “Let’s sail away, shall we?”

Regina put a hand on Emma’s shoulder, giving it the tiniest squeeze of encouragement.

The bell on the door to the diner jingled as she and Killian walked out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'do you, do you like  
> dreaming of things so impossible?  
> or only the practical?  
> or ever the wild?  
> waiting through all of your bad, bad days  
> just to end them with  
> someone you care about...'
> 
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "so impossible"
> 
> \--
> 
> the song emma and david dance to is "Mrs. Potters Lullabye" by Counting Crows, circa 1999 (This Desert Life). i cannot lie; i *may* have been watching the new series _Roswell, New Mexico_ while editing this and over-identified (just a touch) with the nostalgia of the song.


	7. my heart is yours (to fill or burst)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again to [@profdanglais](https://archiveofourown.org/users/profdanglais).
> 
> \--
> 
> 'breathe in for luck.  
> breathe in so deep.  
> this air is blessed  
> you share with me.  
> this night is wild--  
> so calm and dull--  
> these hearts,  
> they race from self-control...
> 
> my hopes are so high  
> that your kiss might kill me  
> (so won't you kill me?)  
> (so i die happy?)  
> my heart is yours  
> to fill or burst  
> to break or bury  
> or wear as jewelry  
> (whichever you'd prefer)'
> 
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "hands down"

They lay out under the stars on the deck of the _Jolly Roger_ , the silence--for once--easy between them. Their fingers intertwined and every so often Killian would run his fingers over Emma’s thumb, as if to remind himself that she was there.

“So,” Killian said. “I wanted to tell you a story.”

“Does it have a happy ending?” Emma asked. “Because, you know, things have been...pretty shitty for me lately.”

“Shhh,” he said. “It’s story time, Swan. Now, once upon a time, there was a little lost boy who had no family but the brother he idolized. But when the brother was called away to serve at sea, the boy was lost again.”

Emma’s fingers tensed around his.

“The little boy was found by the local squire and his sister, a beautiful girl with hair of spun gold and eyes that glittered like emeralds, and they took him in and cared for him as one of their own. The boy came to regard the squire as another brother; as for the girl, he fell hopelessly in love with her.”

“Hopelessly?” Emma whispered.

(Painfully, incredibly, incandescently, insatiably.)

“Aye,” Killian said. “It was the boy’s deepest kept secret, for he believed that he could never grow into the kind of man that she deserved, but he was content to love her anyway, and to be a part of her life. And they went on like this for many years until the little boy’s brother was killed in a tragedy at sea. The boy knew nothing but grief and despair; he loved the girl, but the darkness threatened to consume him even as he was determined to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Only in his grief, he forgot the most important thing his brother had ever taught him: that a man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets.”

Killian shifted, pulling Emma closer to him. “Though the beautiful girl, now nearly a grown woman, had professed her love for him, the boy remained stubborn, and unwilling to fight. He loved her, but he chose the darkness. So he deserved what he got, which was...nothing.” Killian lifted her hand to his lips, still entwined with his, and kissed it. “You run away before you fuck things up, Swan,” he said. “I run away after, to protect myself from the damage.”

“Killian,” Emma said. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I recommended Graham to David,” Killian said. “I was too stubborn to go after you myself, and too angry to accept that, no matter your reaction, I could have told you of my plans before simply leaving.” He paused and took a deep breath. “You left, Swan, and I was angry. I needed to believe that I was in the right, that I was making myself a better man in Liam’s memory and to honor my feelings for you; perhaps even to prove you wrong and find a way to win your heart again. But when you came back to Storyrbooke--”

“We both fucked that one up,” Emma said sadly.

“As you say, Swan,” Killian said. “And I chose to push you away and move on. I could have chosen to have hope.”

(There was that word again.)

“Fear of failure,” he said, “can be a crippling thing.”

“Yeah,” Emma said, squeezing his hand.

“We’ve had our time, and plenty of it,” he said, “of running away and not talking about things. None of it ever worked out well. It occurred to me that we should find another way.” Killian shifted, and Emma could hear the sigh muffled by his hand as he scrubbed it down his face. “I came here for you, Swan. Because I didn’t want to disappear or avoid it anymore.”

“I know the feeling,” Emma said. “Why do you think I left my kid with a neighbor and drove straight through for two days to see you at Bethesda? And then I came home to--”

(Two days of driving, less than twenty-four hours in Maryland, and another two days of driving saw Emma walking into Walsh’s apartment with her own key in the hopes of giving him an answer.)

(Only what Emma saw was Walsh, intimately occupied with another woman.)

“What, Swan?” Killian prompted when she hesitated.

(“ _Walsh?_ ” Emma had asked, not sure how it was even possible that her voice was working.)

( _“Emma!”_ Walsh said, startled. “ _You’re back--early._ ”)

(“ _Apparently,_ ” Emma said.)

(“ _What’s that you’re always saying, Emma?_ ” Walsh asked, suddenly angry. “ _‘It’s a long story’?_ ”)

(“ _Let me guess,_ ” he continued. “ _Yours didn’t work out the way you planned, so you’re back to half-ass it with me again?_ ”)

“It doesn’t matter,” Emma said. “He wasn’t who he said he was, and I got my heart broken. Again.”

(“ _Leave the key_ ,” Walsh said, “ _and go._ ”)

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Swan,” he said. “But I’m quite glad to hear it.”

“You’re glad,” Emma said, “that I got my heart broken?”

“If it can be broken,” Killian reasoned, “that means it still works.”

The silence grew again between them, but somehow, it was still a comfortable silence.

“Who’s Ariel?”

“Ariel’s a--friend, of sorts. She’s quite close with Belle, as it happens.”

“And with you, apparently.”

“Tell me, Swan,” Killian said, rolling onto his side to face her. “Were you truly jealous?”

“I was...confused,” Emma admitted. “I was a little lost in my own head, and didn’t expect to see you with someone.”

“Her husband was killed in the accident,” Killian said quietly.

“He was the one you tried to save?”

“Yeah, he--who told you that?”

“David,” Emma said. “He was really worried about you. We both were, I--I sat with you all night.” It felt like a confession.

Killian sat up. “What?”

“I sat up with you in the hospital,” Emma repeated. “I couldn’t leave you to be there alone. I sent David to the motel and stayed up talking to you, telling you nonsense about my life and pretending it was like before. I sat on the bed with you, and I--”

“Swan,” Killian said. “What did you do?”

“I kissed you,” Emma whispered, “and you woke up. Just for a minute.” Killian’s hand drifted to his lips, his eyes widening as though he’d understood something.

“I thought I was dreaming,” he said. “Had I known, had I realized...I would have fought Hades himself to come after you, instead of…”

“You mean that?”

“Aye,” he said simply. “I know how you kiss.” He drew in a breath and said, “I was not in a good place even before the accident, love. I was still torn apart from losing my Milah; it was as if someone had held my heart in their hands and crushed it into dust.”

“Tell me about her,” Emma said before she could stop herself.

“She was a force of nature,” Killian said fondly. “I’ve often wondered how you two would have got on--she had a dark sense of humor that you would have appreciated, Swan, and she would have adored your Henry. He’s a wonderful boy, with an old soul. Milah had that air about her, as well.” 

Emma tugged at his arm, and Killian allowed her to bring him back down next to her. 

“I truly loved her, Swan,” Killian said. “And you showing up so soon after losing her reopened too many old wounds for me. I’d made a life with Milah, and I told myself that was it--I’d had my chance--and then you walked into my hospital room.”

“You were right,” Emma said. “What you said, about why I was there--” Emma gulped, trying to take in air. “When I saw you, lying in that hospital bed, I knew I’d never stopped loving you. And before I even had a chance to take a breath, it was like I’d lost you all over again, and all of that pain--it just came rushing back. So I drove back to Florida and told myself it would be easier for me to put you behind me than to face all of the pain we’d put each other through all over again.”

“I should never have said those things,” Killian said. “No matter how I felt in the moment, to be that hateful was very bad form. I wasn’t ready to move on from Milah so quickly, and there you were: my darkest secret, exposed, and I was afraid. But I’ve promised myself I shan’t be afraid any more.”

“Of dying?”

“Aye,” he said. “Of dying. Of living, too. I’m a survivor, Swan, I already knew that, but it’s only since then I’ve learned that surviving isn’t the same as living.”

“That sounds...really healthy,” Emma said.

“Be sure to tell Belle so she can take all the credit,” Killian said fondly. “”Twas her idea to shoo me into therapy, and not just for my hand.”

“Can I thank her for my scarf, too?”

His eyes widened--Emma could tell that even in the dark.

“Aye,” he said.

Emma took a deep breath, and did what she’d been wanting to do since she’d seen him in the hospital bed in Bethesda: she sat up, pulling him against her until his head rested in her lap, and she ran her fingers through his hair.

He tensed.

Emma stopped.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I need to know, Swan, if you’re staying,” he said. “Your lad wants to stay; your family are here. Storybrooke is your home. Don’t you care about that? About David and Mary Margaret? About--about anybody in this town?”

“Henry told you that?”

Killian nodded, not looking at her. She pulled at his hair until his gaze met hers. “Of course I care,” she said. “Just--I don’t know how to do this, Killian. How to come home, or how to _be_ home.”

“Maybe,” Killian said, “you just needed someone to come home to.”

Emma smiled faintly. “Let me guess,” she said. “You?”

“Aye,” he said. “Me. And I, you.”

Emma felt like her heart actually skipped a beat at the way he made it sound so simple, and so poetic.

“I want that future,” Emma admitted. “That white picket fence life. And my mom--she left me the house. I want to keep it, Killian. I _want_ to come home.”

“Click your heels three times?” Killian joked. “Or maybe you just need to have more confidence. In yourself, and in me. Maybe you’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas, love.”

“By trying something new,” Emma said.

“Aye, darling,” he said. “It’s called trust. I know it’s scary, Emma, but just tell me if you can show me your heart. If you do, I promise I’ll guard it with my life.”

“And what if I want to leave?” Emma asked.

Killian sat up and reached around his neck, unclasping the chain he wore and handing it to her.

“Then I’ll follow you to the end of the world, love,” he said. “Or time.”

Emma took the chain, and the ring.

“That’s how you get forever, Swan.”

Killian reached over, gathering her hair in his hands and lifting it off her neck so that she could put the necklace on. When she had re-fastened it, he let her hair fall and started to pull his hand away.

Emma stopped him, grabbing it out of the air. “Killian,” she said. “How does the story end?”

Killian looked at her, deadly serious. “Don’t you know, Emma?”

She knew; of course she knew.

She needed to hear him say it.

“It’s you,” he said. “You’re my happy ending.”

That was the fourth time she kissed Killian Jones.

(After that, she stopped keeping count.)

\--

Emma was late getting home after her appointment.

(Home, home, _home_ ; she still kept practicing saying it.)

(Some days it worked better than others.)

She braced herself against the front door, fumbling for a key while she tried to balance the tray of lasagna from Granny’s in her other hand and nearly fell through when Killian opened it for her.

He managed not to laugh at the expression on her face, and Emma had just decided she would spare his life when the eyebrow went up.

“You know, Swan,” he said, and there was the accompanying smirk. “Taking it out of the container and putting it on a fancy plate isn’t fooling anybody.”

“You know, Jones,” Emma said, trying and failing to match his accent--the eyebrow thing was completely out of her range of motion--”You standing there laughing at me isn’t helping the situation.”

“You wound me,” he said, hitting his hand against his chest. 

“Take this, Killian, or I really will wound you,” Emma said, shoving the lasagna at him and getting the door closed behind her.

“As you wish,” he said, and even with her back facing him she knew he had inclined his head and fluttered his eyelashes, a parody of a bow.

“Being charming won’t save you right now,” Emma said.

“As you are well aware,” Killian said, “I leave charming to other men.”

Emma exhaled a laugh through her nostrils, thoroughly charmed. Just--

It wasn’t easy. 

Or maybe it was too easy.

(The stories never got around to this part, about how the princess and the elf went on after they broke the curse; about how two Lost Ones found their way to being a part of something.)

Emma pulled her boots off and, grudgingly, lined them up next to his on the floor before starting to follow him into the kitchen.

(He was a neat freak, seven years in the Navy honing an inclination into a compulsion. She exerted control over her environment by making it as messy as possible.)

(He got up early; she had to be dragged out of bed most mornings--usually by the cat engaging in low-level domestic terrorism in a campaign for breakfast.)

(She couldn’t count to twenty with her shoes on while he happily assisted Henry on his math homework.)

(But their bodies _remembered_.)

(It was easy.)

(It was everything.)

“Killian,” Emma whispered, stepping into the kitchen, “what did you do?”

Killian, having finished putting the lasagna away in the refrigerator, came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“When you apologize, love,” he said, “don’t be afraid to, you know, really get into it--”

She turned, cutting him off with a kiss.

“Be still my beating heart, Swan,” he said when he caught his breath.

The kitchen was immaculate, which was a significant change from the way Emma typically left it in the morning, as if a tornado had just blown through. Laid out on the counter in a variety of serving dishes was--well, it could only be described as a feast.

“You did all of this?”

“Henry helped,” Killian shrugged, stepping away from her. 

“I can’t believe you did all of this,” Emma said. She walked to the refrigerator and opened it. “It’s like a freaking cornucopia in here.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Killian said. “Can’t have your guests dying of food poisoning, can we?”

( _Her_ guests. _Her_ house. And it did something to her, to hear him say it that way, even though she could count on one hand the number of nights they’d spent apart in the past six weeks.)

(She loved the sound of those words, but she wanted to correct him: _our_ guests. _Our_ house.)

“I can cook,” Emma protested.

“You can re-heat things,” Killian amended. “And scramble eggs. I can cook.”

“Pancakes!” Emma said.

“Sadly, Swan,” Killian says, “Dave has you beat there.”

“Speaking of beating,” Emma said, narrowing her eyes at him.

“And now we’re back to the wounding,” Killian laughed. “That’s my Emma.”

(Some days weren’t easy at all.)

(Some days, it felt impossible to get out of bed. Buttercup could always tell, curling up next to Emma and purring against her body as if the vibrations would help soothe her and make her feel better.)

(Those were mostly the days Emma and Killian ended up spending the night apart; “ _We’re both of us accustomed to having space, my love_ ,” he’d said the first time it happened.)

(“ _I’m not your anything_ ,” she’d snarled. _“I’m different than the girl you knew, I’m a mess, and I don’t know what to do with the way you feel about me!”_ )

( _“All I want,”_ he said, “ _is to help take care of you. But you make it so hard, Swan. You always have done.”_ )

(Mary Margaret had cornered Emma, concerned about her spirits: “ _Are you okay? Did you and Killian have a fight_ ?” And then, something like understanding dawning on her face: _“Oh, no, Emma, did you two--was the sex--was it terrible?_ ”)

(Emma had stared at her, incredulous--because, had Mary Margaret _seen_ Killian Jones?)

(How could she ever think the sex would be terrible?)

(Just, like--she loved Mary Margaret, but the woman got so caught up in the happily-ever-after of it all that it would never occur to her that Emma still had a lot of shit to work through.)

(“ _Be patient,”_ Emma had said, throwing herself against him as soon as he’d opened the door to find her standing, yet again, on his porch. _“I’m trying._ ”)

(“ _You don’t have to try any more,_ ” he’d said, threading his fingers through her hair. _“Just be you. I’ll still be here._ ”)

(The sex was definitely _not_ terrible, but it was after that the appointments started.)

Henry called from upstairs: “Ahoy!”

Emma groaned, and Killian winked at her. “I’m coming down!” Henry called. “There is now a child present!”

“Duly noted, lad!” Killian called back, just as her kid appeared at the base of the stairs and made his way to the kitchen. “Did you finish? Are you ready for the big reveal?”

“Oh, yeah,” Henry said. “It’s awesome.”

“What’s awesome?” Emma said.

“I finished setting up my room!” Henry said. “I wanna show Uncle David when they get here for dinner.”

“Sounds great, kid,” Emma said, ruffling her hand through his hair. 

There was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it!” Henry said just as Emma called out, “It’s open!”

Robin, Regina and Roland were at the door, Belle and Will just behind them as Mary Margaret and David strolled slowly up the path, hand-in-hand.

It was family dinner night.

( _“Are you not happy, Emma?”_ )

(The question startled her, but Dr. Hopper’s face was open and inviting.)

(“ _No,”_ Emma said. “ _I am happy. I just...what if I fuck it up, this future I always thought I wanted?_ ”)

“Killian should always cook from now on,” David said, practically inhaling a plate of chicken parmigiana.

“Yeah,” Robin chimed in. “Glad to see all of those months of KP paying off, mate.”

“Aye, perhaps,” Killian said, smiling at Emma. “You’d be surprised what you learn in the Navy.”

“How’s the new office going, Emma?” Belle wanted to know. “Up and running yet?”

“Nearly,” Emma said. “I’ve been reaching out to my old contacts, and some of Graham’s, and I think I’ll have a few jobs lined up by next week.”

“You could have come and worked with me,” David grumbled, reaching for another piece of garlic bread. “We need another deputy.”

(“ _I feel like a fraud,”_ Emma said. “ _Like this happiness is an illusion.”_ )

“I’m not really the ‘law and order’ sort,” Emma said.

“More like pillage and plunder, love?” Killian smirked, grimacing when Emma kicked him under the table.

“And Rob, what about you?” Will asked, rolling his eyes. “You really thinking of staying here?”

“I really am,” Robin said, and Regina’s smile was triumphant.

(“ _I feel guilty,”_ Emma admitted. “ _Guilty for living my life, for feeling...joy. And love. And I wonder how it’s even possible that I could belong here._ ”)

( _“Maybe,”_ Hopper said. _“But maybe, Emma, you’re exactly where you ought to be.”_ )

“Can I decorate my room like Henry’s?” Roland wanted to know.

“Roland,” Robin said, “you know we’re Killian’s guests. He may not want you--”

“Have at it, lad,” Killian said, nodding at Robin’s questioning eyebrows.

“I have some extra posters,” Henry chimed in.

“You’re okay with this?” Emma leaned over to whisper in Killian’s ear.

“Aye,” he said softly. “I believe I am. It’s past time for that house to be a real home again, Swan. If Robin and Roland want to stay, I’m of a mind to make them a very lenient landlord.” Killian’s smile was tentative but real.

(“ _Killian and me, we should be living together,”_ Emma told Dr. Hopper. _“He wants to, I want to. He’s just waiting for me to ask him. But--doesn’t that seem too soon? After my mom, after everything?”_ )

( _“Let’s just say it is,”_ Hopper said easily. _“Is that a reason to stop striving for what you want?”_ )

“Mary Margaret and I actually have some news as well,” David said happily.

“We’re pregnant,” Mary Margaret said, and her smile was beatific.

 _(“Life isn’t just about happy endings, Emma. Life is about how you live it.”_ )

“Move in with me,” Emma breathed.

“What?” Killian turned to face her, ignoring the enthusiastic chatter and congratulations swarming around them, angling his head when Belle got up to pull Mary Margaret into a hug.

( _“Killian wants us to be his home, Mom_ ,” Henry said when she’d asked him.)

(“ _Are you sure? We’ve had a good thing going here, just the two of us,”_ Emma said.)

( _“We’ll have an even better thing,”_ Henry said, “ _when it’s the three of us._ ”)

“I have a closet full of red jackets,” Emma said, sweeping the fringe of his hair away from his eyes. “I thought I could make some space for some black leather.”

“What?” Killian repeated, his eyes twinkling.

“Henry and I discussed it,” Emma said. “And we think this should be your home.”

“Well,” Killian said, reaching a hand around her shoulder and pulling her close enough to kiss the side of her head. “When you put it like that--”

“Oi,” Will called, hurling a small crust of bread in their direction. “None of that at the dinner table!”

“Wait,” Emma said, pushing him very slightly. “This doesn’t mean Will is gonna move in next door, is he?”

“Will,” Killian said, leaning over to murmur in her ear, “is moving to Portland to be with Belle.” He nipped at her lobe for emphasis, and Emma shivered.

“Another happy ending?” Emma asked.

“Is that what this is?”

Emma fisted her hands, tugging at the collar of his shirt and kissing him at the corners of his mouth.

“When you put it like that,” Killian repeated, holding her face close to his and chasing her lips with his. “I would love to move in with you.”

Emma sat back, watching her family, watching Killian, the glint in his hair and the run of stubble along his chin, his eyes in all of their blueness. Her fingers toyed with the chain around her neck and he met her gaze, his breathing even and easy as her other hand reached for his, twining their fingers together.

This was easy.

Emma Swan was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _well, this is incredible, starving, insatiable--_  
>  yes, this is love for the first time.  
> and you'd like to think that you were invincible, yeah,  
> but weren't we all once?  
> before we felt loss for the first time?  
> (this is the last time)
> 
> \--dashboard confessional  
> "a brilliant dance"


End file.
